


Ménage

by cognomen



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Alpha Danny, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alpha/Omega, Anal Sex, Beta/Omega, Complete, F/M, Fingering, Knotting, M/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Multi, Omega Steve, Omega Verse, Polyamory, Sex Toys, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-30
Updated: 2015-10-26
Packaged: 2018-04-18 01:28:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 48
Words: 28,755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4687256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cognomen/pseuds/cognomen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Danny spreads out on his couch and over his living room and into the downstairs bathroom like a typical Alpha. It's not even day one of cohabitation, and Steve is already wondering what he could possibly have been thinking - other than </i>Danno's a short guy, he'd probably fit on my couch<i>. He did, stretched out. Just right so he could lean the back of his head up on the armrest and watch television with lowered, sleepy eyelids. He looks like he belongs, acts like he belongs, and when hes' quiet and content - emphasis on </i>quiet<i>, the rarity that event is - Steve feels strangely comfortable.</i></p><p>  <i>He wants Danny out again as fast as possible. </i></p><p>A series of days, a secret, and Steve coming to terms with how much of himself he frequently ignores.  Ostensibly launched from the point Danno moves into Steve's place but largely independent of the show storyline.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Day 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Ménage](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7781287) by [cicada](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cicada/pseuds/cicada), [Swanheart69](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Swanheart69/pseuds/Swanheart69)



Danny spreads out on his couch and over his living room and into the downstairs bathroom like a typical Alpha. It's not even day one of cohabitation, and Steve is already wondering what he could possibly have been thinking - other than _Danno's a short guy, he'd probably fit on my couch_. He did, stretched out. Just right so he could lean the back of his head up on the armrest and watch television with lowered, sleepy eyelids. He looks like he belongs, acts like he belongs, and when he's quiet and content - emphasis on _quiet _, the rarity that event is - Steve feels strangely comfortable.__

__He wants Danny out again as fast as possible._ _

__Bad enough to have 'your friend-and-coworker-the-Alpha' taking over your living room with pizza boxes and dirty underwear piles, worse still when you were an Omega yourself. He didn't need or want an Alpha in his life - if he wanted one, he'd have one. Steve is hardly unlucky when it comes to sex, he just stuck to Betas - safe, comfortable, pleasurable company that didn't want to take over his life._ _

__Then there was Danny. Picky, fussy, _hairy_ , Alpha Danny who had come in and settled before Steve really knew what hit him. He never would have guessed Alpha, though. Not that first week, certainly. Not until he got a better look at Danny's driver's license or learned about Grace and the ex-wife. By the time Steve was certain, but the time he'd gotten used to Danny's over-applied mosquito-bait cologne enough to scent real Alpha beneath, it was too late. He was already making concessions, bending over for allowances._ _

_He wants Danny out of his house as fast as possible._


	2. Day 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first time Steve thinks Danny knows, Danny is holding back the shower curtain in his private bathroom. What he's doing there, aside from being nosey and invasive, Steve isn't sure.

The first time Steve thinks Danny knows, Danny is holding back the shower curtain in his private bathroom. What he's doing there, aside from being nosey and invasive, Steve isn't sure.

"You have a, uh, whole rainbow of body wash flavors in here," Danny observes; sly smile that suggests he's proud of his own cleverness.

"I have a stressful job," Steve says. Smooth, he keeps his tone smooth.

"Yeah we both have a stressful job," Danny agrees. "What's that got to do with the entire old spice line in your shower?"

"You're the one who has to sit in the car with me on stakeouts, Danno. You tell me," Steve demands. He leaves Danny in the bathroom, shaking his watch back into place on his wrist and snapping the clip down after washing motor oil off his hands.

"You just didn't seem like the type," Danny calls after. Steve lets him keep thinking it's about vanity - whatever 'type' he doesn't seem like, it's a safe certainty he seems even less like an Omega.

Changing scents on products frequently keeps people from being able to pull his real scent from beneath. This is another puzzle piece in the jumbled box of them that Danny has. How many it'll take for him to see the picture, Steve doesn't know. Maybe he already has and was trying to force a conversation about it without coming out and asking.

If he thought a confrontation about his bathing habits was enough, Danny was wrong. anybody could have an overabundance of body wash. Anybody could also play obtuse. this wasn't a conversation he wanted - or needed - to have with a co-worker. Even one living on his couch.

He has seventeen days to find Danny a new place.

-


	3. Day 5

Steve washes down a whole handful of vitamins to cover his suppressant dose every morning and evening. Two small pills in a veritable salad of horse-pill sized dietary supplements. St. John's wort and D and C and all of it tastes terrible. In the morning, he eases it down with Coffee; in the evenings ( _How those republicans wanted to reduce Omegas to the functions of reproduction and would frown that Steve didn't consider himself 'pre-pregnant'_ ) he eased his swallows with beer. 

Supposedly, Ceasex and alcohol were a bad combination. Steve thinks a worse combination is evenings without beer. He takes the calculated risk.

The morning and evening regimen are one thing Danny hasn't remarked on. He has explored every inch of Steve's house, and his presence is pervasive and insistent. Steve has heard him sing Bon Jovi in the shower and moved handfuls of his wet laundry from the washer to the dryer. He's picked up messes, and worst of all, has not minded any of it. This last grates on him in the absence of what _should_ grate on him.

By the time Danny emerges from the shower, hair slicked back and ridiculous collared shirt buttoned up to his chin on a day that will top eighty degrees, all the bottles are whisked away off the counter. Steve doesn't keep his prescription bottles. 

"I'll clean up the kitchen before Gracie comes over tonight," Danny promises, when Steve gives him a neutral look. It sounds defensive.

Steve looks at the sink full of dishes, says nothing, and puts his coffee cup against his mouth before he starts a fight. 

"I'm going to take her out to the movies, so we'll only be here until I change clothes and then we'll be out of your hair."

"You have her all weekend?" Steve asks.

"Only until Saturday night," Danny says. "She's got a thing on Sunday morning..."

"Church?" Steve supplies.

"Nuh-uh," Danny says. "Worse. Cheerleading practice."

He helps himself to a cup of coffee - he takes it with no sugar and only cream. No explaining that excitable nature of his as sugar rush.

"That's not so bad," Steve says. "My sister was a cheerleader."

Danny's eyes rake over Steve's body, sparing him the sort of dirty look he usually reserves for hardened ex-convicts. _Not helping._ Well, Mary isn't much of a role-model, but lots of girls did cheerleading.

"It's an intense sport," Steve says, defensively. Only Danny is capable of putting him on the defensive - now, without even a word.

"You have an interesting definition of 'sport'," Danny begins. Steve smiles into his cup, watching Danny take the bait. He's got power too.

He hears all the finer details of what does and does not constitute a sport - including clauses about 'skirts above the ankle on _my daughter_ ' and 'hair bows in school colors' for the entire ride to 5-0, and he can't get the grin off his face the entire time.

He has twelve days to get Danny out of his house and into an apartment they both find acceptable.


	4. Day 7

Grace contains Danny's kineticism. She has a gravity that pulls him down to earth and a levity that focuses his attention into a laser beam. The depth of love there is captivating - even to Steve who has never felt that particular draw. He'd never liked kids.

He likes Grace. He likes her presence in hi shouse, and how she settles into it quickly and completely, taking an invitation from Steve to make herself at home at face value. He catches -well, witnesses - her in the fridge, scowling at the slim contents until she finds orange juice and then victory eases over her youthful features. Brilliant smile - _like her dad_.

Steve - or at least his fridge - has passed a test. He's pleased by it. She pours for them both, sits down across the breakfast bar like the world's youngest bartender, ready to absolve him of his sins. Steve sits down on the other side and takes a long sip of O.J.

"Thank you for helping Danno," she says, seriously.

Steve smiles in spite of himself. "You didn't like his apartment either, huh?"

"Not me," she says, coy, playing a game she knows he'll have to play. She's good. Charming. Like her father, only with just a little more filter. "Dolphin Trainer Annie."

"Well, between you and me," Steve confides, "Dolphin Trainer Annie is right." 

She smiles. _Danny raises a good kid_ , Steve thinks. Maybe he holds on a little tight sometimes, spends a lot of time barking and throwing his weight around - but he's an Alpha.

"Can he stay here forever?" she asks, shifting on the barstool, watching Steve intently.

"I don't think he'd like that," Steve says, honestly. Her dark eyes become guarded, careful. she doesn't look much like Danny, but her expressions are the same - her use of quiet is the same. "Grace, I promise you we're going to find your dad someplace nice. Where he doesn't have to sleep on a couch. He'll be happier."

"I think," she says, and her eyes slide toward the kitchen window, to the beautiful beach view beyond. Here's a kid who lives in a mansion, looking at the ocean. Steve realizes she's probably tired of moves and changes, tired of seeing her dad dragged around on a leash. "He's already happy."

"You like the beach, huh?" Steve asks. A bond is formed.

"I like surfing," Grace says, suddenly bright and present. "I like that there isn't a big wall."

Steve finds that painfully relatable - Hawaii is an island that should not be boxed up and contained. People shouldn't be either. He offers her a toast with his glass. She raises hers, and clinks it very carefully against his, satisfied with that answer. She doesn't seem to mind his reserve, his long silences. She's not in the least intimidated by his defenses.

_Grace likes a place with no walls,_ Steve thinks, but she's become very adept at climbing over them.

Ten days suddenly doesn't seem like enough time to handle this situation.


	5. Day 8

"I need to skip this one," Steve says. It's not a lie, but he knows this is taking the easy way out. 

His doctor - Dr. Hale - consults Steve's charts, flipping back several pages. Steve was hoping he wouldn't.

"Mr. McGarrett it seems you've skipped the previous scheduled heat," he begins, authoritative - informative, not judgmental. 

"I was in a combat situation," Steve says. _Keep level. Keep rational._

"And the time before that," Dr. Hale continues, eyes lifting from the paper. No longer measuring the picture of his history, now measuring the picture Steve makes in person. _Compensation_. Steve knows.

"I'm a Navy SEAL," Steve qualifies. 

Dr. Hale flips his chart closed. This isn't going to go Steve's way.

"Mr. McGarrett, with respect to your lifestyle, I respect the decisions of your prior physicians. However - given that you are currently not in a combat situation - wouldn't you rather do this now?"

"It's not a good time," Steve argues.

A sceptical look.

"There's an Alpha living with me," Steve continues. "A friend. Co-worker. He doesn't know."

A long look. "I think it's time you two had an adult conversation about it, Mr. McGarrett. the health risks involved in continually taking suppressants without allowing breaks for your body to normalize it's hormone balance..."

"I know, doc," Steve says.

Dr. Hale makes a mark on his chart. "I'll approve you for a month delay."

"Thank you," Steve says. Relief.

"Don't thank me," Dr. Hale says. "Have a real talk with your friend and clear your calendar from any further inconveniences - no doctor will approve five years of skips."  
-


	6. Day 12

Steve is acutely attuned - out of a sort of minor paranoia - to his body. He keeps a lid on his annoyance, aware of the changes even a skipped heat - especially a skipped heat, he's discovered - wind into his hormonal balance. As if his body is retaliating by piling obstacles against him, revenge for so often defying the natural order. 

So when Danny's shirtless ambling - his compact, muscular body on display wet from the shower - raises an urge to strangle him, Steve shuts himself in the study or the garage. The garage is better, he can work on the car. 

He turns on old music and lets his mind - angry at how _at home_ Danny was, how comfortable ( _Alpha_ ) he was in someone else's territory - go quiet. He thinks of nothing but the exhaust system.

His phone buzzes in his pocket in the space after - minutes or hours, he's not sure. He reaches for it, hoping for work. Hoping something dangerous is out there for him to destroy on his Island. 

_Catherine_. He answers. 

"Hey, Cath," he says, breathing out. Normal.

"Hey, Commander," she purrs. Social call. Steve smiles.

"You in town?" he asks, glad to hear her voice.

"Mm-nn. Not 'till next week," she says, and his enthusiasm flags - just a little. "But I promise next week I'll be there for you, babe. I cleared my schedule."

_Shit._ Steve hasn't told her that his plans have changed - it's been a charged couple of days while he got everything situated - prescriptions harder to refill under Danny's nose, harder to get into the house, harder to get rid of the plastic containers. He'd forgotten to call Cath and tell her.

"Wait until you see what I got you," she continues, and at any other time it would have brushed a chill of excitement against the tail end of his spine. Now, it's just a chill. "I had to order it special."

"Uh, Cath," he says, feeling like a kid called out in class in front of the teacher. In front of the _super-vixen_ teacher. "I gotta tell you. Something's come up."

"What?" she asks, easy. He _does_ like her, even if this - whatever it was uncomplicated thing - has become awfully complicated lately. 

"So, uh," he finds his hands fussing with a wrench. He puts it down and sits on the tool bench instead. Flat palms. "Danny lost his apartment, and he's staying here for a little while."

The silence on the other end of the line changes flavor a little.

After a moment, she says, "Steve, isn't he an Alpha?"

"That's why I got an extension on my Ceasex," he admits. He can't help a paranoid glance around the garage, as if Danny might pop out of the exposed engine block.

"Steve, we've been planning for months," she reminds. Cath has been excited for this since she'd first gotten into bed with him, as fascinated with his intimate anatomy as the rest of him. "And hasn't it been years? You're gonna mess yourself up."

_Not as much as if I went into heat with Danny right on top of me like he is._ He doesn't say that out loud. "I know. It's only another month, Cath. By then he'll have a place of his own."

She doesn't argue. A thoughtful pause, then her tone comes back, playful. "Okay, but can I still fuck you with this strap on I bought?"

Steve flushes hot, pleasurable. His body - calmed though it is with the sea of suppressants it's drifting in - suggests that would be a _wonderful_ idea. He swallows, and she must hear it because she chuckles.

"Yeah," he says, mouth dry but hungry. "Yeah, I'd like that."

"Then I'll see you next week, tiger," she says.

-


	7. Day 15

"Okay," Danny corners him, pinning Steve down - as much as Steve can be pinned down, he can always go through the obstacle - by standing in the doorway of his bedroom. " _What_ is going on with you?"

Steve reassures himself that he knows he can take Danny down - that an Alpha is not really standing between himself and freedom in his own house. "Nothing's going on."

Danny's skeptical look is well practiced. Masterful. He swings slowly into a lean, levering himself against the door frame in a slow, thoughtful motion. It complete, and then his eyes snap back up to Steve's, as if Steve will have reconsidered in the interim. He hasn't. 

"Danny, _nothing_ is going on."

Danny's hand comes up and gives that 'I know better' scratch to the side of his neck. "Okay."

"Okay?" Steve repeats, raising his voice. He can't help it. He doesn't like being closed into the space right now. Not, especially, by Danny.

"Well, I mean, it's just..." Danny starts, a series of repetitive words that say nothing while he puts his thoughts in order and then expresses whatever chaos rules his mind in a logical series of words. "It's just that you're carrying something around that seems pretty dark and heavy, partner, and not only do I have to worry about that maybe spilling over into your whole Howdie-Doodie-Lone-Ranger act, I gotta live with it right now."

Anger wells up, bright, quick. Steve holds it. He lets his silence talk - anything he says, Danny will talk over, anyway.

"So anything you got going on, anything you have on your _mind_ -" Danny stresses the word, charming in his bulldog way, and Steve knows he won't let this go; he'll cut his teeth into the flesh of it if it's the last thing he does. "Then I think I should know about it."

Steve thinks of the suggestion Dr. Hale made; _have an adult conversation_. And; he _wants_ to, he wants for that moment to just tell Danny everything and have faith that he can trust Danny. Steve thinks, alarmingly, what a relief that would be.

"Danny," Steve starts. Danny knows the tone - knows it means he's not getting an answer. "There is nothing on my mind that hasn't been on it since you moved in."

It's not a lie.

"Yeah, tell me about it babe, but you haven't even complained about wet towels on the bathroom floor or dishes in the sink," Danny says. "And that indicates, to _me_ anyway - I mean, I don't know. I don't know about you, Steven, but that suggests to me you've got something pretty big on your mind."

Danny's voice is in that low, matter-of-fact-Danny register, confidential and sly. Steve smiles in spite of himself. Fresh eyes, acute. What Steve values in a partner, he should have considered a little better in a friend. 

"Alright," Steve says, knowing he has to feed something to Danny's tenacity, even if it isn't the truth yet. "What I have on my mind is that Cath, who I haven't seen in a few very long months is going to be here, in Hawaii, on leave, in a few days."

Danny is listening. Attentively, his teeth over his lower lip in a frozen, intent expression. He hasn't moved out of the doorway yet, however.

"And I have my friend and work partner living in my house," Steve finishes.

"Ah," Danny says, an expression of smug Alpha-typical enlightenment washing over his features.

"Ah?" Steve parrots, irritated again. "What is 'ah'?"

"Well, partner, if you want me to book up in a hotel for a few days so I don't block your - well, Mojo," Danny says, making a two-handed gesture, as if setting his hands on someone else's hips. 

Steve can almost feel strong hands on his own. He shuts down his own reaction. If he's honest with himself, Steve's _not_ sure that's what he wants. "Well, I don't want to-"

"It's nothing, babe," Danny says, smiling. "You could use some you-time, if you ask me. You're wound up beyond tight."

He doesn't, mercifully, make any cracks about being an Omega. In fact, Steve has never heard him make a single disparaging remark. It doesn't mean he believes Danny is different.


	8. Day 17

The absence of Danny makes it easier, in some ways. What should be the first - and most intense - days of Steve's heat are transformed instead into a foggy haze. Steve hates it, but he's learned to fight through. He drinks extra coffee and works out harder to keep his blood pumping. This time seems like the worst; Steve's got what Kono calls jokingly 'a bad case of dragon ass' by lunch. 

When he gets home its almost overwhelming, a bone deep exhaustion that means he settles down on the couch and sleeps, vaguely aware that it still smells like Danny's cologne - like Danny himself. It's almost comforting, and he's too tired to care that he's going to sleep with Alpha scent soaking into his hindbrain. He's just glad that Danny has cleaned up his mess to something presentable for Cath's visit, packed his overnight bag and vacated the premises

When Cath comes in, a little after 9 PM, smelling like the airport and artificial new car smell from the rental car, she looks bright and cheerful in a way that Steve almost finds offensive to his muggy, half-awake thoughts. She smiles down at him on the couch, her little teal rollaway a promise trailing behind her that she's going to spend at least one night even if their plans have changed.

"How do you feel?" she asks. Steve takes a moment, having to remind himself he doesn't need to lie to Cath.

"Groggy," he admits. "I'm not crazy about being so drugged up."

Catherine settles on the arm of the couch and reaches out, running her fingers gently through Steve's hair. The contact is comforting and sweet.

"I can't imagine," she admits, "but I know how much you hate not to be at the top of your game."

Steve feels a little better just to have her there, calm and yet just a little charged up. She's excited.

"Where's Danny?" she asks, clearing the perimeter before she makes any move. Her nails skim very lightly over Steve's scalp, sending a little thrill down his spine.

Steve rolls over onto his back, easing his head and shoulders into her lap. "Hotel up the street."

"Smart," she says. Then, her expression changes a little - not quite all the way to mischief, but she's watching for his answer. "Did you tell him?"

"I told him that my very beautiful girlfriend," Steve manages not to stumble over the word, "was coming home on shore leave and he got the idea."

"Well," she says, airily, "that's not what I meant but you're free to decide how irresponsible you want to be."

"Irresponsible?" Steve repeats.

She soothes him with a firmer touch but doesn't clarify. Instead, she leans down and whispers in his ear.

"Why don't you come upstairs with me and we'll see if I can't make you feel a little better," she says. When she leans back her eyes are practically _glittering_.

Interest surges up and drags the tired, quieted rage of desire that should be coursing unchecked through him to the surface. The sensation is strange - like trying to feel your fingertips through a wave of pins and needles. Unquestionably _there_ , but so dull he can't help but be distracted by how distant it is. Still, he goes - for Cath, he wants to at least try. She's been so game. Some part of him needs to know this can work - so that next month he won't be chewing (or _humping_ , more embarrassingly) the furniture.

Everything comes to him the same - like trying to feel - ( _straining, reaching to feel_ ) the brush of butterfly wings through a snowsuit. It's pleasurable, but almost maddening. Near, but not _on_.

It wears him out enough to sleep in the end, with Catherine curled against him after patting him and telling him he'd taken it like a champ when the truth is Steve's pretty sure that even if it would have been painful, he couldn't find pain through the Ceasex with a map and a flashlight.

He sleeps fitfully and homes tomorrow they'll find _it_ \- whatever _it_ is - at last.


	9. Day 18

"Hey babe," Danny greets him, morning cheer. Donut crumbs. "You are - _wow_."

He grins, swinging his chair back and forth, looking sly and certain of himself. "You are positively _glowing_ , you know that?"

Steve isn't expecting that statement - his mind is already churning over, his body already itching for action - kinetic, even suppressed as he was. There is a faint burning heat beneath his skin, a distance to his thoughts as the drugs fight their hardest against his hormones.

"Good night with Catherine?" Danny asks, shit-eating smile that goes straight to his eyes. 

"You wanna get up and do some work, Danno, or you wanna sit here grinning like a sphinx?" Steve snaps. He wants, with a sudden clear desire, to bite Danny. Wants to go round and round with him like they did that first day, only this time he wants to keep going until matters sort themselves out and he knows exactly how he feels about it. 

"A-" Danny starts, blinking. 

"A sphinx? A sphinx - okay;" Danny says, getting up. "A sphinx, do you believe this guy?"

Nothing has been solved by skipping a month, he realizes. Nothing satisfied by trying to scratch the itch with Cath. He already feels Danny's absence from his house, a missing brick he's going to keep stumbling over.

"Let's go catch some bad guys," Steve says, instead of admitting he'd had trouble sleeping the night before without the sound of infomercials piping up from downstairs.


	10. Day 20

Steve wakes up foggy and alone, and every part of his body wants to surrender to inertia. The blankets feel like weights on his chest, the bed like a sand pit pulling him down. He drags himself out of it, and through a shower - much longer than the regulation 3 minutes in the navy. Sensation feels distant to his skin, though otherwise his body makes no demands - the drugs are still working.

When the feeling of wet and warmth finally penetrates his numb shell, Steve stumbles downstairs in a towel, takes his Ceasex and vitamins, and feels them stick in his throat. For all that showering, he's dry as old bones and feels as if he's similarly rattling around in his skin. He turns on the faucet and lets it run, bending to drink from it.

"Hey buddy - whoa," Danny's voice. Steve doesn't stop drinking. "What are you an animal?"

In this moment, as he struggles to quench his thirst, even Steve wonders. He feels as much a slave to his instincts as an animal would be, even with his body dulled and denied to this point.

When he's done drinking, the color of the concern filling the kitchen is alarming - bordering - annoying.

"You don't look so good," Danny says. Understatement.

"Yeah?" Steve snaps. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Mean?" Danny parrots, shifting - getting into defensive mode. "It means you don't look like you're at the peak of fitness and ship shape or whatever the proper navy jargon is for 'you've got a cold'."

For someone so smart, Danny has moments of blind obtuseness that are outright staggering. the urge to set Danny straight perches on Steve's shoulders - to throw the truth down at his feet like a gauntlet and see what kind of fight results. He waits, gathers his thoughts into a laborious line before he responds. 

"People get colds, Danny."

"Not people who take vitamins like you do," Danny argues, against all evidence.

A pause. Some anger - muted and distant, not much of a spark. If it were not so drowned it would be fury.

"You're just not the sort of person who even _gets_ sick. Colds come and you pull that Navy SEAL trick and slit its throat with a knife held in your _teeth_ -" Danny continues.

Improbable and incorrect. Steve holds his tongue.

"So you're telling me that you are _really_ sick and not just trying to stretch your days off because your girlfriend's got shore leave?"

The implication is too much. The memories - Cath fucking him and Steve trying to feel it; trying to feel enough for relief. For artificial relief to matter.

"You know Catherine is already gone," Steve says. He's thirsty again, mouth dry and jaw tense. "Or else you would have knocked before you came in, I hope."

Danny looks at him - _really_ looks, taking in the fury that's roiling up, the misery, and falls quiet. In fact, he's so silent for so long, the space in the kitchen seems to grow bigger. Steve yanks a glass out of the cupboard, the silence continues. He fills it, and the faucet running is the only noise.

It feels like the right moment for an explosion.

"I'm an Omega," Steve says. Then he drinks.


	11. Day 20 - Later

Steve shouldn't be drinking while on Ceasex, but after the initial bit of shock - then repetitions, enough to make Steve consider taking it back on one of the many afforded opportunities - then a few loud demands for 'why', he'd appeased them both with Konas and as few answers as he could manage.

Danny has a few long sips, a few deep breaths.

"Okay," he says. "So why didn't you tell me?'

Steve's head feels faintly clearer, though now that he's seated across the table, the chair feels extremely deep. Comfortable. He's not getting up again until there's no other choice.

"I didn't think it was your business," Steve says.

Danny looks at him for a long moment in disbelief, foot jigging under the table in upset, abstract motion. "You pretty much made your business my business."

"Not that part," Steve says.

Danny's eyebrows arch skyward. "It's a pretty important part."

It is, but it's also not Danny's business, not at least until Steve trusted him. Not until he _knew_ that he wasn't going to pull any Alpha shit. Steve looks up, finding Danny uncharacteristically quiet. His palms are pressed flat together like a man praying, but the sides of his fingers are pressed to his mouth above his thumbs in a long moment of consideration.

"Steve," He starts, lowering his hands and leaning forward in earnest. "Every aspect - _every_ aspect of my life has been laid open to you like a book since you charged in and took over my case. You know about my relationship with Rachel, you know I'm an Alpha, you've become 'Uncle Steve' to Grace, you dominate my free time _and_ my work time."

All valid points. All things that Steve feels are unrelated to his biology. 

"So maybe the specifics aren't really my business," Danny says, "but you have to trust that I can handle information I clearly need to adapt to without making up some cover story. You can just tell me you're uncomfortable."

The problem is that Steve _isn't_ uncomfortable. He thinks - he _knows_ \- he should be, but for all the moments where it hasn't really worked, Steve has never really regretted extending the invitation. He has no real idea how to quite reconcile that. He's not really sure if he can trust his reactions to Danny. Steve presses his hands to his face, knowing that he should respond to Danny's earnest openness with some of his own, but his head is drifting and he no longer trusts his instincts.

"I'm not sure I'm in any condition to talk about it right now," Steve says. A pause. "I'm not even sure if I would even like you if you weren't an Alpha."

There. Easy. Like pulling a trigger with the silhouette of a man outlined in his sights. No details, just truth. Except, he knows Danny well enough to see hurt in his eyes when he looks up. Putting the hammer down is too hard; Steve hates being tangled in this constant fight against his own nature. He hates fighting the stigma surrounding it. 

Danny hesitates, then tips his head the other way. 

"I don't know that you wouldn't _like_ me," Danny says. "I'm pretty likeable. I'm not sure you like me all that much anyways."

Steve's mouth is dry again. The sink feels very far away. His beer is empty. The chair has a lot of gravity.

"I like you enough," Steve admits. It feels like too much.

"What does that mean?" Danny asks. "That could mean a lot of different things."

_Right now,_ Steve thinks, _it doesn't mean anything._ That's a hammer he can't put down. "Means I need time to think about it and sort things out."

Danny's hands make a hollow drumming sound on the table as he thinks about it. Then he nods, agreeing. He starts to stand up, then hesitates.

"So when are you going to-?"

"Next month," Steve says.

A strange light in Danny's eyes that flares and fades, discarded. He's in check. Smooth. that's easy to be when the physical side was taken out of the equation. 

"Well," Danny says. "Is Cath going to be back for that?"

Steve doesn't know in all honesty, and Danny hits a realization in his own words.

"Is that - is that what _this_ was?" Danny asks. "Only you pushed it back?"

"You were living with me," Steve says.

"You didn't want me to know - I wouldn't know - all you had to do was say 'Danny, put up in a hotel for a week," Danny says. His tone is a little louder now. "What, you don't trust me to contain myself? You think I'm some kind of monster?"

Like that, it sounds ridiculous. At the heart, it's true.

"You don't think that I could - or _would_ \- respect your decisions or wishes like an adult?" Danny says, louder.

"It's not like that," Steve says. Every fiber of his being is resisting the desire to fold himself down into supplication at Danny's authoritative tone. He doesn't know if that means he wants Danny to keep using it.

"Then what is it like, _Steven_?" Genuine anger now, but Danny's tone has gotten lower.

"It's not personal, Danny," Steve snaps, knowing it's not true even as he says it. "You're an _Alpha_."

It's the end of the rational, adult conversation.


	12. Days 21 & 22

Day 21

The silent treatment. Kono and Chin Ho trade glances behind Steve's back; Max steps into a room full of charged hostility and erupts in a socially inelegant 'whoa...' before backing up a step to give his opinion on their latest case.

Danny stays another night at the hotel, enduring the limited wardrobe of his overnight bag to continue forsaking Steve's house.

-

Day 22

Steve feels human again, fog fading from his mind and strength returning. Danny wears the same outfit to work and stammers out a broken washing machine story, but not to Steve. Otherwise, he's quiet and careful. He only lights up when Rachel drops Grace off at the end of the day, swinging his daughter up into his arms and greeting her jubilantly with,

"Hey, Monkey!"

She smiles at Steve over his shoulder and gives a little wave.

"Are we going to Uncle Steve's? I brought my surfboard," She asks, bright.

"No, but I tell you what," Danny divulges, carrying her - Steve's heart sinks a little - away. "You are gonna love this hotel I'm staying at."

That evening, alone in his kitchen with his eyes on the empty beach behind his house and only ocean waves crashing to keep him company, Steve knows what he wants, what he's missing, and not why he's resisting it.


	13. Day 23

Steve's phone kicks up Danny's number, and he briefly considers ignoring it; ignoring the whole problem until it goes away and everything eases back to normal. Then he figures there's probably only two reasons Danny would call him right now - one was that he caught a case - the other was that he needed access to his clothes or possessions. Steve hadn't really intended to cut him off from access to his stuff. The very notion was a bit too much like a lover's spat to really be comfortable.

He answers, "McGarrett."

"Hey Uncle Steve," the voice is Grace's, sweet and just a little sad. 

"Hey, Gracie," Steve says, confused. "Is your dad okay?"

"Mm-hm," she says. "He's in the shower."

Steve's relieved to hear Danny's okay - not that he'd expected him to get into any real trouble with Grace at his side. But if she wasn't calling for help, Steve's not quite sure how to continue - he's not exactly well suited to social calls.

"Okay," he says, carefully. "What can I do for you, Gracie?"

She doesn't go through any preamble, just lunging ahead in the conversation with a directness that makes Steve smile. "Are you mad at Danno?"

She lets him think about it. 

"No," he decides. "I'm not mad at Danno, okay?" 

It doesn't sound terribly reassuring and it isn't like she can't see the signs that something is pretty wrong. She's a smart kid.

"Danno said we can't come over and use your beach," she confides.

Guiltily, Steve remembers his promise that he'd find Danny someplace they were all happy with before making Grace endure another change. That had gone wrong somehow; now none of them are really content, he thinks.

"We just had a little disagreement," Steve says. "Sometimes, certain types of adults can't live together all the time..."

Steve isn't sure how much she knows, and he doesn't want to be the one trying to lay down the way the world works to a grade schooler. 

"Danno says," she starts, then hesitates. He hears a motion against the microphone, an idle fidget before she drops her voice to a whisper - like it's a secret, "you're like me."

"Like you?" Steve asks, uncertain. He senses that he's just been given a real secret in Grace's opinion. He treats it with according respect.

"Mm hmm," she says. "You know - an Omega."

That surprises him only a little, and then begins to make more sense. Danny's over-protectiveness, his tendency to go above and beyond when reacting to even a _perceived_ threat to his daughter.

"Danno says that sometimes it's hard for Alphas like him to live with Omegas," she continues. It's simplistic, but efficient. Enough of the truth without all the anatomical details.

"He's right. Some things are just hard because of our natures."

She hesitates. Steve knows the next question is going to be difficult. "Are you going to stop talking to him like Mom did?"

Steve hadn't thought about it like that. That she would draw a parallel to Danny's situation with Rachel. 

"No," he finds himself saying; the thought of becoming only professional associates with Danny is too hard to deal with. _Shit, how deep am I in this?_ "It's just a little stand-off situation between me and your dad."

_I sound like I'm discussing military tactics,_ Steve realizes, but Grace gets it.

"So can he come back?" she asks.

"You can both come back," Steve says, meaning it - he isn't sure he ever _intended_ to throw Danny out at all. He just had to rattle him, make sure he wasn't the sort of Alpha that blew up under pressure.

Only all of that is just an excuse, and Steve knows it. He'd pushed Danny away because having an Alpha in his life that he was _comfortable_ with - even comforted by, to an extent - was a notion he wasn't ready to come to terms with. 

It scared him, and Steve really only knew one response to feeling afraid and threatened.

"When Danno gets out of the shower, tell him he's welcome back, alright? We'll work it out, and you can enjoy the waves, okay? Bring your board."

She thanks him, earnest relief in her tone, and Steve thinks he's in real trouble, then. Maybe, if he gets in too deep, Steve can convince himself to say no to Danny, to cut him out of his life and ignore the ragged hole - but he doesn't think he can do that to Grace. Not now, not since she has confessed to being an 'Omega like him', playing a hand that suggested she wanted and needed a role model in her life to show her that Omegas could do - or be - anything they wanted to. 

She doesn't think Rachel - for all he liked her when he met her - is it. She was content, not that there was any shame in it, to live a typical life. To let her Alpha take charge. Danny couldn't teach her about being an Omega, either, he could only protect her.

An hour later she's at the door in her board shorts and best smile, junior surfboard tucked under her arm. Behind her is Danny, looking both sheepish and uncertain. For once, he enters Steve's territory with a certain humble reserve, stepping over the threshold with his hands in his pockets like a kid in a museum. Afraid of breaking something.

_This may work out after all._


	14. Day 24

They don't talk about it. They should, but Steve doesn't want to argue with Grace around - she takes Mary's old room and settles in quickly, arranging a castle for Dolphin Trainer Annie on Mary's old vanity table. Steve thinks even his sister would approve. 

Instead, for twenty four hours, they totter around with Danny on tenterhooks and Steve unwilling to be the one to meet him halfway. It feels to much like a concession, though he knows that's childish.

Grace plays go-between matchmender, and Steve suspects she's had a lot of practice - that she had once tried to mend Danny and Rachel's relationship this way. Steve wishes he could reassure her that it wasn't that serious, but even now, less than a month in, he has a sinking suspicion that it might be exactly that serious.


	15. Day 25

"Okay babe," Danny says, plunking down two beers on the kitchen table. "We better really talk about it."

Half an hour before, Grace had gone with her mother, pausing to give Steve a reassuring hug before leaving him alone with Danny. _Good sense_.

Steve picks up his beer before he agrees. "Okay."

"So I'm guessing you skipped-?" Danny asks.

Steve nods.

"And you and Catherine were supposed to-?"

Steve hesitates, then nods again.

"So, partner - and this is what's killing me, here - why did you ask me to move in with you if you didn't think I could handle this?"

All of the defensive hackles on the back of Steve's neck rise. He tries to remind himself to _stay level_ , to keep his instincts in check. 

"Okay, first of all," _nope, no good. Not level. Can't stop._ "I didn't _ask_ you to move in. I _offered_ you a place to stay so you and Grace didn't have to go through a succession of hellholes."

"Okay," Danny says, when Steve runs out of steam. _He's_ listening, _he's_ keeping level, and Danny's the Alpha - the one who's supposed to be ruled by all of his instincts. 

Steve takes a deep breath. He tries to rein in his hostility - Danny doesn't deserve it. "It isn't that I didn't think you could handle it."

Danny is still listening, elbow on the tabletop and chin against the back of his palm. His other hand is curled loosely around his beer bottle, and every so often his blunt, strong fingers stroke over the glass in an absent gesture. Steve finds himself watching the motion.

"I thought we'd find you a place a little quicker than we did and..." Steve hesitates. When he speaks again his tone is quieter "It turned out, I didn't think _I_ could handle it."

Danny's expression changes to confusion. 

"Danny I haven't had a heat in five years," Steve says - and it's a hollow excuse. Not the whole thing. The reality is more complicated, but Steve doesn't think there's anyone, at all, in the _world_ he would give the whole truth to about this. "All those hormones going crazy. I don't know what it'll be like. I don't know what _I'll_ be like. I didn't trust myself not to do something I'd regret afterwards.

Danny's fingers make that motion over the beer again, pushing condensation over the glass now.

"You could have told me," Danny says, in earnest. "I wouldn't have let you do anything that you told me, stone cold hormone-free, you didn't want to do."

_Why does that sound like an offer?_

"Well," Steve says carefully - _if I don't trust me jacked up on my own heat, I'm not sure how I would trust you_ , "Now you know, and it doesn't matter anyway."

"Yeah," Danny says. He drinks, then grins. "You know, you make a lot more sense now."

Steve's expression must do the talking, because Danny's grin gets wider.

"Like that face right there," he says, and then Steve realizes he's being needled back into their old style of interaction. Affectionate antagonism.

"There's no _face_ , Danny," Steve says, without real anger.

"If you say so," Danny says, dismissive.

"What face?"

"The one you just made," Danny says. "It says, 'hello, I'm Mr. Stormcloud' - _that_ face. Trust me. You have a face."

-


	16. Day 30

They both stumble in, exhausted and triumphant from work - a rare day not in that it had started with a disaster, but that everything out of the gate had gone right for them. Steve enjoyed a chase, but only if he caught what he was hunting in the end. There was an amazing feeling when he and Danny hit the same wavelength and moved through enough opposition to stagger a small army.

So, today, victory. Nobody was shot, stabbed, or almost blown up (the latter happened an alarming amount to 5-0 members, Steve thinks). They caught their man and got to come home feeling outrageously good. Steve doesn't think about his father's unfinished case in the toolbox in the study, or how few pills he has in the cupboard, or how Danny sprawls to take up about 90% of the couch.

He just sprawls out took, bringing a whole six pack of beer out to set it on the coffee table as an open invitation to share.

"Did you see the look on that guy's face?" Danny asks, grinning, sharp and brilliantly happy. On Danny, it's a pure emotion. 

"Of course I did, Danny, I _tackled_ him," Steve reminds.

"And it was -" Danny's arms come up, beer held between his thumb and first two right hand fingers, pinky and ring finger spread wide to mirror his other hand. Emphasis. "A _beautiful_ tackle. Really. One for the record books, babe."

Steve agrees. At the time, he hadn't given any thought to form or figure, but the beauty was here and now - in success and happiness.

Danny leans back against the arm of the couch and drinks, but he's still half smiling and still looking at Steve. Admiring, maybe. For a moment, he feels a bright pride to have Danny's attention like that. It feels like it's worth something. _I'm grinning like an idiot_. It feels good - quiet and right and comfortable. He wants Danny to look that happy more often - knows somehow that they'd both share the feeling.

"Hey, Danno," Steve says. "You weren't so bad out there yourself today."

"Yeah, I guess I wasn't," Danny agrees, but there's something more to his expression, something deeper under just the flush of pleasure Danny should get from praise. He's looking at Steve and enjoying himself - bright eyes attentive and appreciative.

Steve gets up to fill a glass of water for himself and shoves the thought aside that they both have a day off tomorrow. He takes his usual vitamins and does a quick calculation, looking down into the bottle (Vitamin C) that holds his Ceasex. Seventeen days. _Full circle_.

When he returns to the couch, everything is back to normal - Steve isn't sure he'd even seen what he thought he had. He isn't sure about a lot of things lately. He doesn't like it. Mirth fades down into routine, and they retreat to separate corners of the couch and silence that is at least companionable. The television drones on about how aliens were responsible for some historical event or another.

It seems neither is really paying attention to anything but their own thoughts.

-


	17. Day 31

"So he's living with you again?" Cath asks, as Steve cradles the phone to his ear in the garage. 

"Yeah, we worked it out," Steve says. _To a point,_ he does not say.

"Well, good," she says - she seems to mean it. "I think you'd have a nervous breakdown if you had to sit on all those stake-outs in total silence."

Steve isn't sure what that's supposed to mean. "I've been on lots of quiet stake-outs."

"Yeah but you _like_ Danny's chatter," she says, mischief clear in her tone. 

"I tolerate it," Steve says, defensive.

Catherine laughs at him - she knows better. Steve knows better, too. Anything he really didn't like, he wouldn't allow. While at the start, he'd been hoping that eventually Danny wold mellow out, it's become clear that the words 'mellow' and 'out' didn't go together in Danny's extensive and frequently used vocabulary. 

"No," Cath says. "You like it. It's okay, I'm not jealous."

"Not-?" Steve starts, his mind stuttering over the concept, stumbling on it. "Not jealous? What would you be jealous of?"

"Relax, Steve," she tells him gently.

Steve finds a crescent wrench in his hands, his thumb and forefinger twisting the adjustment screw over and over to open and close the grip head. "I'm relaxed."

"What I mean is, I'm not worried my Omega boyfriend is living with his Alpha partner," she says. He tries not to wince at 'boyfriend'. _It sounds like high school_. "I'm honestly just glad you're both finally talking about it."

Steve flips the wrench in the air, spinning it until he catches it again.

"I think it eats you up to hide it all the time," Cath continues. "All that time focusing on what you don't want to be, rather than what you _do_ -"

"There a point to all this?" Steve asks, sharper than he intended. Cath doesn't take offense.

"I don't know," she says, amused. "You called _me_ , remember?"

Steve does remember, but he doesn't really want to admit why he called anymore. _I could try again tomorrow, start again without all this extra baggage about Danno..._

"When's your heat?" Cath asks, stabbing through the heart of Steve's silence to the original reason for his call.

"In about sixteen days," Steve says.

"About?" Cath asks.

"Probably it won't start until the day after," Steve says. The dosage would taper off in the last seven days rather than suddenly cease, to ease his system back into it after so long on a steady dose.

Steve hears her flipping through papers.

"Can you get leave?" he asks, anxiously.

She's quiet for long enough to make him worry, deliberating.

"I'm scheduled for a training refresher course all that week," she says. Steve's heart sinks a little.

"But," she says, stretching the word - more shuffling paper. "I'll ask my XO. It may be that I can plead an emergency and get into a later class."

Steve reads a lot of variables in that, a lot of 'buts' before any kind of a positive answer could be obtained. It makes him a little nervous. _It's my own fault._ If he had just been up front with Danny, if he'd never offered to have Danny move in a tall, he wouldn't be here. 

"Okay," Steve says, trying not to worry before he has a final answer.

Cath seems to hesitate, as if debating herself before she says, "I'll call back and let you know."


	18. Day 33

"Uncle Steve," Grace calls in from the back door, wet head to toe and mindful of dripping on the tile - conscious even when she sounds so excited. Steve looks up from his crime novel and she beckons him out with a conspiring grin.

Steve tucks his reading glasses into the book to mark his page. He follows her outside, obeying her briefly signed 'hush' command and following her light steps down the stairs. She leaves wet, dark footprints behind her that disappear entirely below Steve's flip flops, covered up and then reappearing faded when he lifts his foot.

She stops at the bottom of the stairs and points out at the gently rolling waves past the little strip of beach that belongs to Steve and his neighbors. Normally, when Grace is down swimming or surfing, Danny occupies a striped lawn chair on the sand and watches her like a hawk. He pretends to read, but his eyes are always watching for any sign of rough water or distress. 

Today, instead of being in the chair, Danny's out in the waves, belly down on an oversized surfboard and paddling. His hair is loose and wet, and it turns out - though Steve has always suspected otherwise - that Danny _can_ swim. Strongly, in fact, as he works on navigating the board, on learning to get up out of the water and onto it.

This, he's not very good at. The board - Steve recognizes it after a moment as one of his - is too big for him. Danny's center of gravity is too low for it, and he doesn't have the skill at balancing to compensate. Still, there he is, practicing. Trying again and again. 

"He's getting better," Steve tells Grace, smiling before he thinks to stop himself.

She grins up at Steve, making him a co-conspirator. "He made me promise not to tell"

Smart kid. She hadn't said a word about it, just let Steve see with his own two eyes. He sees someone happy - someone relaxed enough in a new habitat to finally let go of all the parts of the past he was hanging onto in order to try really living his new life. To finally let himself be home.

"You think he's happy?" he asks Grace. She nods solemnly.

"How about you?" she asks, pulling her wet hair back off her shoulders and wringing it out onto the sand.

"How about I what?" Steve asks, wondering if she's going to suggest he go down and surf too - like a real part of the family.

"Are you happy, Uncle Steve? Sometimes you look pretty mad," she says.

_Sometimes, I am pretty mad,_ he thinks. _But not all the time_. Less, he realizes, when his life is full of this strange family that's built itself around him. Subconsciously, Steve must want it; he realizes he's done everything to encourage it, even while professing that he wanted nothing more than to spend his personal time alone. With the house empty, the big spaces seemed to echo. With even Mary gone - off to the mainland where it's safe for her - it feels too much like the house had after his mother's death. Silent and too welcome an environment for his worst thoughts. This way, he forgot to get too wrapped up in Shelburne or Wo Fat's world domination plans. 

"You know what," Steve says at last, watching Danny ride his first successful - if tiny - wave. "I am happy, Grace. Thank you."

Her patience in waiting for an answer rewarded, Grace hops down the last two steps and wades back into the water.


	19. Day 35

Steve's deep in thoughts about how he feels about spending so much time with Danny - and by extension, Grace - in relation to how much Wo Fat seems to want to reach into his life and make a nuisance of himself. This was the exact reason he'd insisted Mary shouldn't stay with him. There was a big target that appeared over the hearts of those that Steve was close to. Danny could take care of himself, and Cath was not only a capable woman but frequently out to sea where her very isolation from anything that wasn't the Navy served to protect her.

Grace was another story - but Danny's proven capable of protecting her,a nd Steve can bet that if _he's_ thinking about it, then it's already occurred to Danny's paranoid Alpha mind. If Danny could protect her by himself, with Steve helping, nothing could really touch her. _Or so I hope_.

"Whatcha thinking about, babe?" Danny - as usual - appears as if summoned when Steve is thinking about him. Since his return, he makes more effort to stay mostly clothed, even coming out of the shower.

"Grace," Steve admits, shaking his bottle of Ceasex as if he could make the pills - now more of them were carefully sectioned into a numbered packet than left loose as the standard dose - multiply. He realizes the motion looks anxious and stops. Danny isn't paying attention. 

"She's something, isn't she?" he agrees, with a big dopey grin that's somehow charming anyway.

Steve knows better than to even try to deny it - event o make the argument that it wasn't _quite_ what he was thinking of. Instead, he humors Danny, and smiles. He takes his evening pills. "I was more thinking about Wo Fat and what kind of danger the two of you are in by staying here."

As usual, he washes the dose down with a beer. By now, he's sure Danny has noticed, but he hasn't said anything. Wisely, he's kept any opinion he might have on it to himself.

"Danger?" Danny asks instead, as if disbelieving.

"People have broken in, torn the place up - they took _Mary_ , remember?"

"Yeah," Danny remembers. "But to be honest - I mean Grace and Rachel both were _carjacked_. They didn't give up and leave the island because of that. It had nothing to do with you or me, Steve. At least Wo Fat we can anticipate - so that doesn't scare me."

Danny accepts the longboard that Steve offers, and his muscular bicep works beneath the rolled up sleeve of his shirt as he twists the top off, flicking it with expert precision into the trash can. Steve watches the whole motion; power and grace.

"It's life's unexpected suckerpunches that worry me," Danny confides. "And to be honest, I've never seen a guy handle a sucker punch better than you, babe, so don't worry too much. We can take care of Grace."

The way he says it is strange, and it calls up something long buried in Steve. A singular twinge of want - for a family that is _his_ , for the sort of future he has never wanted. _What is wrong with me?_ But, he wants to. Steve wants to help Danny protect Grace,a nd he's glad Danny trusts him enough to allow it.

Steve needs more beer and more than twelve days to sort this out.


	20. Day 37

It's ticking away in the back of Steve's mind, an inescapable pendulum that catches him off guard in his empty moments. Whenever he stands still for too long, a timer seems to creep into the back of his mind, calculating how long he gets to keep his sanity.

Steve actually dusts off the treadmill his father kept around and gets on it. It would be more productive to run outside, but Steve wants to stay close to home; close to his phone. He's waiting for Cath to call so he can know this whole mess will be managed - that he won't be trying to handle it by himself. 

He doesn't want to trust himself. The plots of a thousand movies run through his head, a bunch of romantic comedies of the sort Cath liked to watch, or dramas where in the end the Omega was forced to reach out at the height of their desperation.

The phone rings. Steve lunges for it, nearly falling off the treadmill - going at full tilt and leaving him wet with sweat. The minute he stops moving and answers the phone it leaves him cold, sweat suddenly cooling between his shoulders.

"McGarrett," Steve says.

"Steve," Cath says - with some reserve. He doesn't like the sound of it. "Are you okay? You sound out of breath."

"I've been running," Steve admits.

"What were you _chasing_?" she asks, playfully.

_I wish I knew._ "Did you convince your XO to give you the time off?"

She hesitates, and then Steve knows the answer, by intuition. He has instincts as and Omega that tell him these things. He hates when he has to listen to them.

"No, Steve," she says. "I'm sorry, baby. He pointed out that I'd just had shore leave last month,a nd I can hardly claim family emergency to an intelligence officer."

"I'm not family?" Steve tries for humor, but his mind is a white space ringing like a bell.

"Not legally," Cath says, and then with a sidling tone, "unless you wanted to change that-?"

Steve recoils - he knows it's a joke, but at the moment, when he can feel the edges of desperation already on him, it doesn't seem very funny. The last thing he wants to think about is marriage and domesticity.

"No, huh?" she says, picking up on his resounding silence. "Steve I _am_ sorry, but you always knew it was going to be tricky to schedule this."

He knows. Deep down, it had always seemed _distant_ enough that he didn't have to worry about it. He handled things that were immediately in his grip far better than he handled planning things months ahead. Now, here it is, solid and real. Right on top of Steve and he doesn't like the feeling of being ambushed even if he knows its his fault.

"What am I going to do?" he asks Cath, as if she has the answers.

"Whatever you need to, Steve. I won't hold it against you. Honestly, I don't think I could ever do what an Alpha could for you, anyway," she admits - but there's no sound of defeat in her voice, just the practicality that Steve adores about her. "Just keep me in the loop, that's all."

"In the loop?" Steve asks, his thought sticking on the thoughts of being alone and totally desperate. 

"Yeah," Cath says. "Just let me know who you decide on - or, well. It's your body. Let me know how you decide to deal with it."

Steve scratches blunt nails over his forehead.

"Are you suggesting I find an Alpha-"

"And fuck your brains out, _yes_ Steve," She sounds slightly exasperated. "I'm just sad I'll miss it."

"You-" Steve runs out of things to say at that point. His mind stutters over the options and then seems to freeze up. A complete stranger, when he was at his most vulnerable? It wasn't like Steve couldn't protect himself, but he doesn't want anyone - _anyone_ \- to see him like he's going to be.

Maybe, he realizes, not even Catherine.

"I'll think about it," Steve says.

He won't think about it. He can't.

-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -Sorry this was late today! Sometimes I run a little behind in transcription (I write everything by hand first and then type it in) so it takes me a little longer.  
> -I may have to take a couple day's break on this to catch up on some other projects, I'll let you know if there's going to be a 'skip' day!


	21. Day 40

Steve doesn't think about it - he isn't going to just _submit_ himself to-

"Hey buddy, are we gonna eat that food when you're done killing it or are we just gonna pick what's left of it up off the floor with tweezers?" Danny bursts into his thoughts. Danny always bursts into his thoughts, and Steve is aware - as he has known all day - of the lower dose of Ceasex. It's only a fraction lower, but he _swears_ he can feel the difference, and it leaves Steve irritable. He drops the knife on the cutting board and turns - _rounds_ might be a better descriptor - on Danny.

"You think this is funny? 

Danny's confusion is not artificial but it irritates Steve even more, waking up his temper.

" _What_ ," Danny answers, squaring himself against Steve's intense glare and into the argument. "Do I think _what_ is funny?"

Now that they're at the challenge part of the conversation, Steve doesn't want to admit why he's so irritable - doesn't want to suggest that he has a condition, that he's not in full control of himself and his emotions. He puts his hands down flat on the counter and the cool, solid worktop helps him ground himself.

"If you're asking if I find amusement in your upset then yes - mostly because Mr. Big Navy SEAL is taking things out on his toys in a class-A tantrum the likes of which I haven't seen since Gracie was two," Danny says.

Steve knows he's right, but nothing has conveniently presented itself to be punched - it's as if the whole island has suddenly decided to behave itself just when he needs to blow off steam. He takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly as Danny keeps talking.

"So unless you wanna calm down and tell me what specific bunch your panties are in at the moment...?" Danny suggests, pausing to give Steve room to talk.

_What the hell._ Steve thinks.

"Cath can't get shore leave," Steve admits, suddenly aware that Danny is between him and the doorway into the living room. There's still a back door, but he doesn't like having his passage blocked.

"Yikes," Danny says, and then, pausing, he seems to take in the full meaning. 'So what are you going to do about-?"

"I don't know," Steve snaps. A week to go, and all of his plans have come apart. It seems too real now. It hadn't then.

"Well," Danny says, looking at Steve calmly. For a moment, Steve thinks he's going to make an offer - casual, careful. _Trying to take advantage of my moment of weakness._

"People get through it every day, babe," Danny says instead. "What do you need right now? You can't be there yet."

It's so rational, the question so level and unexpected that Steve's whole angry train of thought violently derails. _What do I need right now?_

Setting aside any ideas of the future and a total solution to his problem, Steve could use a couple of things: a target, and then a nice long swim to cool off. 

"I'd really like something to hit," Steve says, and then shows Danny a smile. Just enough to make him nervous.

"Okay, hotshot," Danny says - he doesn't buy Steve's bluff for an instant. "How's an hour or so with a punching bag sound?"

"Where are we going to find one?"

"I know a place."

" _You_ know a place?"

"Yeah," Danny says, gesturing - a big encompassing circle that suggested totality and harmony. "I know a place. I can know places."

Steve allows that Danny can, but can't fully curb his skepticism.

"Come on, angryface," Danny says. "I'll drive. And if you need anything else this week..."

Danny hesitates, spinning the keys on his finger and giving Steve a meaningful look. Steve catches the keys midair. _He'll_ drive.

"Don't throw any tantrums, okay?"


	22. Day 43

"You got everything worked out?" Danny asks, leaning in at lunch to exercise his version of discretion.

Of course, Kamekona's shrimp truck on the beach with sand sliding between Steve's toes and the soles of his flip flops is not exactly a top secret meeting room. Paranoia creeps on spider's legs up the back of Steve's neck.

He checks his immediate surroundings for any overly interested ears.

"What are you looking for?" Danny barks, waving a shrimp tail at him. Maybe at the world in general - it's a pretty expansive gesture. 

"I don't want to talk about this in public," Steve says.

"What _public_ -?" Danny starts - but in light of Steve's darkening expression - he can _feel_ it - he backs off.

"All you have to do is say yes or no," Danny says. "That's it. No details. I don't... I don't even really think I _want_ -"

Danny hesitates though, and a strange, wistful expression crosses his features. He's not being wholly truthful. Danny is a bad liar.

"I don't want details, just reassure me, _please_ that you are not going to go on a rampage with a very, _very_ high body count."

"Yes," Steve lies, keeping his tone bland.

"And when do you need me to, uh, vacate the premises?"

_Just make the offer_.

The thought surprises Steve - his first instinct to say 'yes' drowns in this new realization. The thought that Danny was interested has been sitting in the back of his mind since Steve first revealed that he's an Omega. Now, being faced with an ultimatum - he has about four days to think of a better solution than chaining himself to a radiator like a were-wolf - he's _really_ considering it.

It'd be simple. Convenient. Probably, Danny hasn't been laid in a while, Steve analyzes. the only difficulty came with the major benefit - tied up neatly together like a bow. Danny is an Alpha, and nothing can ever be simple or casual between Alphas and Omegas.

_Why couldn't he be a Beta?_

That was easier. Like what Steve and Cath had - equal. Casual. Nobody trying to take over Steve's life or give him orders. It wasn't like Steve asked to be an Omega - he doesn't _need_ an Alpha. Especially not one he has to work with every day.

Steve has no desire to be _protected_ \- it would get in the way of his job.

It would change his life in that way that he doesn't want it to be changed.

"Hello? Earth to Commander McGarrett?"

"Did you just say ' _earth to..._ '?" Steve asks, pulled out of his thoughts by Danny's insistent, annoying droning. "What is this, the space race?"

" _Yeah_ I just said that," Danny answers, exasperated. "You drifted off to Jupiter, _space-case_ , I was trying to get through that helmet of yours. I asked you a question, whenever the _Mars mission_ ends, could you maybe answer it, please?"

All that noise. Steve chews the last cold bite of his lunch. Maybe spending his heat with Danny would be the easiest _physical_ solution, but he's not sure he could live with the rest.

"Just to be safe," Steve says, "probably in three days you better check into the hotel again."


	23. Day 44

Steve wonders what would happen if he took his remaining dosages of Ceasex every other day, and then decides he's being a baby. His heat is coming, and like Danno said, people survived them every day. One more challenge.

He'll lock all his doors and watch lots of porn. Steve has the self discipline to make it through. To be honest, he's not sure what he's afraid of.

_Except waking up out of a stupor and finding myself bonded to some Alpha who would try to turn me into a housewife._

They'd have another thing coming.

He's honestly felt much better since Danny introduced him down at his training gym - and of _course_ he went to a gym. Steve should not have been surprised. He was an Alpha with a great body - probably partially to compensate for his height - of course Danny pumped iron.

He'd given up his last secret to Steve when Steve needed it. Maybe it was fair repayment for Steve's trust.

_Maybe it was just that I needed something so he gave it to me._ Steve would do the same for Danno. It was just an unspoken bond between them.

He's spent every night since with his hands taped into half gloves, punching the bag until his hands got sore and all of his frustrated aggression worked its way out. Tonight, Danny appears halfway through Steve's session, does his own routine and then comes sweaty and crowding into Steve's space. He holds the bag while Steve pummels it.

_He smells good_ Steve thinks. He hits the bag harder. _That's just hormones._ His senses are getting sharper - at least in regards to Alphas - as the Ceasex dose lowers.

"You got everything worked out for how you'll explain your absence to the team?" Danny asks, bracing his shoulder into the bag.

"Navy calls me away for an undercover op. Something sensitive I can't discuss," Steve says. " _You'll_ know how to get in touch with me in emergencies."

Danny gives him a frank look. "Are you really going to try and take consults while you're...?"

"No," Steve says sharply, sinking a punch into the bag hard enough that Danny has to take a step back. "But it means I can be gone until it's all done and _you_ can pretend you're in touch with me and you know everything's okay."

So the team didn't worry and try to concoct some rescue scenario.

"Okay so you're out doing wetwork," Danny says, following his story. "Is that what I tell the Governor, if she asks? She'll have the ability to check into it."

Steve hits the bag. "You let me handle the Governor if it even comes up. If you all can keep things going smoothly until I get back there shouldn't be an issue."

"Yeah but _babe_ -"

Steve feels a strange flush of pleasure at the common pet name. He hits the bag.

"This is 5-0," Danny continues. "We specialize in _not_ smooth. In fact, by the time we usually come in, things are downright rocky."

He has a point. "I have faith in you."

"Well, I'm very _flattered_ , but seeing as half our cases seem to come from the Governor to begin with, I'm hoping I won't have to explain where her golden boy is when she says she has a McGarrett level case."

"You'll figure something out," Steve assures.

"Okay, I don't know if you've noticed, but I am a _terrible_ liar," Danny informs him.

Steve's noticed.

"You'll figure _something_ out," Steve repeats. 

His arms feel like noodles, worked past soreness, and he can feel the cumulative effects of beating on the bag for a week in his knuckles, wrists, and elbows.

"And is there anything else you need while I'm covering for you?" Danny asks, passing Steve his water bottle.

Steve tips it up to drink and eyes Danny speculatively. _Just taking care of me - like we do for each other._

"I'll let you know."


	24. Days 47 & 48

Day 47

Danny packs efficiently in the evening, making sure Steve has food in the fridge and plenty of Gatorade. Steve takes his last, vastly reduced dose of Ceasex while they share a beer.

"So why'd you let it go for five years anyway?" Danny asks.

"It's inconvenient," Steve admits. He feels surprisingly mellow - surprisingly okay. "And it's not a great idea to go into heat on a carrier ship."

Danny's expression twists into an allowing tick - Steve's point is a good one.

"But that's not the only reason," Danny prompts.

"Nope," Steve says. It's deliberately difficult, but tomorrow his world is going to break a little bit and he's not sure if he can handle it, so his policy has become to not give a fuck.

"Okay," Danny says, but he's smiling at Steve a little. His expression one of those fond ones he gets when Steve is predictably Steve and Danny likes it. "See you in a few days, babe."

-

Day 48

Steve is halfway through his morning ritual - coffee, vitamins, stirring eggs in a pan when he realizes he doesn't feel any different. He is _aware_ that the low levels of Ceasex should have run out overnight and his system _should_ be ready to turn on full throttle.

So far, the only thing Steve _wants_ is to finish his coffee and breakfast and go back to bed.

By 3 P.M. he's watching daytime TV in a half-doze and thinking, _this isn't so bad._  
-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -So tomorrow is either going to be a (very) short, single day update or a skip day while I work on a 'bigger' day chapter. Which would you prefer? Day 50 is going to be significantly larger than most of the parts to this point, so the wait should be well worth it...


	25. Day 49

By noon, the thought that he should call Dr. Hale and ask some questions has occurred more than once. Aside from a boredom that's threatening to make Steve climb the walls, Steve doesn't feel any different. He's watched enough mindless talk-shows to make even heat seem appealing.

_It's probably nothing._

maybe it's been so long his body just won't anymore - like a permanent chemical change in his bloodstream. He wishes he were at work, but doesn't dare leave the house.

The silence is deafening when Steve turns the TV off, and dialing Cath only takes him to voicemail.

Steve mutters something about thinking of her and then hopes she doesn't call back at an awkward time. Then again, maybe a little phone sex would take the edge off. Maybe he just had to warm himself up a little.

It feels awkward in the middle of the day, with the brilliant Hawaiian sun streaming in through the curtains, but Steve plugs in one of the DVD's he'd dug out of his collection from his teenage years.

_Nothing._ It's going to be a long day.


	26. Day 50

When Steve wakes the next day with nothing worse than a dry mouth, he's dialing Danny before he thinks about it. The phone rings twice before Steve convinces himself it's stupid - there's nothing Danny can do, and he's sure it can't be much longer.

It would be better to call Dr. Hale first. Steve's equally sure of two other things - Dr. Hale will tell him it's just a matter of time, and that who he _wants_ to speak to, when he feels uncertain and angry, is Danny.

Steve punches in half of Dr. Hale's number before his cell phone screen changes, showing Danny's contact information and the phone rings, shaking in his grip.

He answers without thinking about it. "McGarrett."

"Steve," Danny says. It's a relief to hear his voice, a big one. _Maybe I'm just used to his constant talking._

"You okay?" Danny asks.

"Yeah," Steve says. "That's kind of the issue."

"What do you mean, that's the issue?" Danny asks. "I thought-"

A pause, probably while Danny verified that his surroundings were clear. "I thought you'd be right in the middle of your heat by now."

Steve feels a wave of irritation at being reminded, bright and hot. It compounds quickly on his frustration that he _wasn't_ already halfway through. "Danny. Nothing's happening."

A moment of silence. "What do you mean, nothing's happening?"

"I mean," Steve's tone rises as he spells it out, hating the repetition. " _Nothing_ is happening, Danny. I feel fine. I could be at work today."

Another pause while Danny processes the information. His voice comes back in a softer tone, though what he says has a sliding pitch of amusement.

"Okay. Did you - did you stop taking your meds?"

_Does he think I'm an idiot?_

"Yes," Steve hisses, angry. The back of his neck feels hot, the small of his back. Sticky. "I'm not stupid. I _know_ how this works-"

"Well I'm just tossing out ideas-"

"At least assume I have a _miniscule_ amount of sense, Danny-"

"And how am I supposed to know what's wrong anyway, when you won't _tell_ me anything-"

"I'm telling you everything right now-"

"And you seem so intent on avoiding the _entire issue_ ," Danny is practically yelling, both of them talking over each other. This kills Steve's protests in his throat, making him feel good, giving him a channel to blow off steam. "How am I supposed to know if you haven't tried to put it off again somehow or avoid the whole thing altogether?"

"Danny," Steve starts. Danny interrupts him.

"So, what you should do," Danny continues, authoritative. Logical. In control, like he was when shit hit the fan in regards to family. "Is call your doctor and ask what your next steps are, but I am positive that it's just that after five years, things are a little out of whack."

It means, Steve realizes as the phone seems warm against the side of his head - he's sweating through his hair - that Danny considers him family.

_I really want him here._ He needs a little family right now. Danny is still talking, still filling Steve's silence and it's almost a physical relief - the sensation that he wasn't alone.

"Danny," Steve says again. Danny pauses. "I want you here."

Quiet. Steve's insides twist up, anxious anticipation, a nervous terror of rejection that makes his mouth suddenly dry. 

"Are you sure? I don't want to do-"

"I'm sure," Steve says. "And sober, remember? I'm asking you, right now. While I still have total control. Come over."

Steve hears the sound of a swallow. He hears Danny pick up his car keys.

"You're gonna be in total control the whole time, babe," Danny tells him. A bright thrill of pleasure strokes down Steve's spine at that, velvet soft. "If that's what you're so scared about."

The pleasure is quickly replaced with a flash of irritation. "I'm not _scared_ , Danny."

Danny's voice takes on a soothing tone that is somehow not patronizing. Steve can hear him moving.

"Did I say scared?" Danny repeats, carefully. "I didn't mean scared, I meant nervous."

"I'm not-"

"And who doesn't go into a new situation a little nervous?" Danny continues. The car alarm chirps. "Crazy people, that's who."

Steve allows that he'd probably rather be shot at than go through this - but he knew at least if he was under fire, Danno would be at his back. _I guess now, too._

"Okay, Steve," Danny says, catching Steve's attention. "I'm going to drive now, so I have to hang up."

The feeling of loss is almost tangible for Steve. He holds back any protest - Danny will have to make arrangements and allowances for his absence, and Steve might potentially be too distracting for Danny to drive safely.

"But I promise you I will be there very soon, okay? And I'm going to take care of you."

"Hurry," Steve breathes before h can stop himself. What he wants to say is _'now'_. His thoughts are beginning to feel hazy and sluggish, his limbs heavy. _Maybe I can catch a nap on the couch before he gets here._ He's sinking down on it before he can reconsider the idea, phone still pressed to one ear.

"You got it, babe," 

-

Day 50 - Later

Steve is not usually a deep sleeper - his years in the Navy have drilled what was left of his teenage ability to sleep in out of him, and a variety of missions have left him wary even in his sleep. Ready to emerge fighting if anything intruded on his surroundings.

So when he comes up slow into a pleasant haze - he feels _too warm_ , the couch is too small, and his calves are hanging off, and there's an enticing smell that seems to have sunk into it - it seems wrong, somehow. It takes an embarrassing amount of time for the soft sleepy edges to fade from his mind, and then he's on alert.

He wants to turn over and feel the fabric of the couch rubbing against his skin - any touch at all would be absolutely electric, he thinks - and sink down into that amazing scent. Cover himself in it. The urge to roll through it like a cat with catnip starts him turning onto his front, and he finds that his pants are sticking to his thighs. He's also hard as hell, desperately so. 

Steve groans, reaching down to pry his sopping pants away from his skin. _Gotta change._ It means getting up. He's not sure he wants to, but he knows he should at least get to his bed. It seems dimly important, but he doesn't want to leave behind the comforting scent soaked into the couch cushions. _Danny_.

As if in response to his desirous thought, Steve hears movement in the kitchen. He recognizes Danny's steps - heavier on one side than the other to spare his knee. His presence is reassuring, and Steve pries himself off the couch in favor of getting a glass of water. His mouth is parched. As he moves, a gush of warm, wet slick spills out of him and Steve curses.

Danny appears in the doorway with a beer and finds Steve with his hands tangled in the soaking fabric of his cargo pants, pulling the wet, chaffing stuff away from his legs.

"Why didn't you wake me up?" Steve asks, pretending very hard that he isn't embarrased by the spicy, sex-ready smell that he knows is pouring off of him, but the fact that he's climbing out of a soaked pair of pants already in front of Danny's bright, interested gaze.

Danny takes a long swallow of beer before he answers, a hungry set to his mouth. "Uh, I wasn't sure how much sleep you'd gotten and I figured you'd need a little extra for the next few days."

It's not a boast, not really, just a considerate statement. Danny's been through this before. For him, it's familiar. He projects a very reassuring aura of being able to handle it. Steve wants to wipe it off his face, to push him down and wear him out until one of them is begging for mercy.

"Maybe we should, uh, negotiate-"Danny starts. He stumbles over the big word when Steve drops his pants on the floor. 

"No," Steve says. He doesnt' want to talk - or _think_ \- or pretend to be civil right now. If this is happening - and it already is - the specifics are unimportant. He trusts Danny that much, at least. "We shouldn't."

Danny's eyes are very dark. Glassy. Focused. 

Steve hooks his shirt off over his head and turns toward the stairs - Danny will follow. He leaves his soaking boxers in the short upstairs hall.

"Huh," Danny's voice behind him. Steve shivers as the air conditioning pours a cool gust over his heated skin.

"Always though you'd go commando," Danny muses. _He's thought about it._ A pleased thrill runs down Steve's spine. Much as this has seemed a threat since Danny's moved in, Steve hasn't put much thought into what the actual act would be like.

His bed looks extremely welcoming. Steve eases onto it, and Danny sets a couple of water bottles down on the nightstand. _How is he so collected?_

"So," Danny starts, sitting fully clothed on the edge of the bed - well behaved in a way that irritates Steve. It would be better if they were both at least a little out of control - Steve would feel less conscious of his own lack that way. "Is there anything I should be aware of?"

Steve suppresses a snarl - barely. He reaches out, tangling his fingers into Danny's ridiculous starched button up, pulling him closer. He keeps his tone as level as he can, looking Danny straight in his dilated blue eyes. "I'm in heat."

Danny swallows again, not looking away. "Right. I got that, but if there's anything you don't like or don't want me to do..."

Steve growls, pulling Danny closer still. He gets his other hand wrapped around danny' stie as Danny half contorts to stay seated. Steve begins disassembling the knot. If Danny doesn't pitch a helping hand in soon, Steve's going to start disassembling his _shirt_.

"Anything you don't want to happen," Danny continues stubbornly as Steve gets his tie off. "I better know now."

"I don't like too much talking," Steve says, flatly. He pulls a little harder on Danny's shirt and it feels good to test his strength - to realize he's got leverage and advantage over Danny. He doesn't have to listen unless the words 'no' or 'stop' come out of Danny's mouth.

Steve's pretty sure they won't.

"Boy did you call the wrong Alpha," Danny says, sounding nervous as Steve twists his unresisting body by holds on his clothes. "But, Babe, it's a real question - I feel like on behalf of Alphas everywhere, I better not screw this up."

"I don't want 'Alphas everywhere'," Steve hisses, pushing Danny down on the mattress. He's sure this should be the other way around, that he should be the one submitting, but if Danny isn't going to take control, Steve sees no reason to be shy about it.

"I want you."

"Ah, thanks," Danny chuckles, nervous, as Steve strips his shirt off of him, roughly enough to pop stitches. "But I think I know I'm the second choice."

_Cath_. Shit.

The moment of caring drowns quickly. She's not here - can't be - and Steve needs this. He'll call her afterward. She'll understand.

Steve doesn't have an appropriate verbal response - and at the moment, reassuring Danny's ego isn't on his agenda. "Are you going to help at all?"

"You gonna answer my question?"

"If I don't like something," Steve says, showing his teeth, yanking the button above Danny's fly. "You'll know."

It's answer enough for Danny. He lifts his hips to help Steve get his pants off, and then makes an effort to turn them over on the bed. _No reason to make it easy for him._

"You gonna let me up?" Danny asks, as Steve swings a leg over his hips.

" _Let_ you?" he challenges, bared teeth. The air feels outright cold on his skin and every point of contact he makes with Danny seems electric and pleasurable. Especially when Danny's hands finally stroke over Steve's back, catching at his hips.

"No," Steve groans, leaning down over Danny with his palms flat on the bed to either side of him. "I won't let you, but you can work for it."

Danny pulls in a breath and for a moment, Steve thinks he's said something wrong until the sloppy, half formed smile starts to grow on Danny's features. He flushes all the way down his chest, surprisingly pink, and Steve can feel his thickening cock moving against his thigh as it fills.

"Alright," Danny says, digging his finger into the muscles over the tops of Steve's thighs and feeling the resistance. "But it'd feel better for you the other way."

It's a promise, delivered in a husky tone, a suggestion that Danny was going to play his own way if he was going to play at all. Steve drops his weight and grinds himself wetly over danny's hips.

"Show me," Steve dares. If Danny doesn't start really touching him very soon, Steve's going to throw him over and _demonstrate_ what he wants. Some sign of his desperation must show through.

"Okay," Danny soothes, even when Steve practically leers at him. "Okay, babe, I got you."

His big, broad, rough hand closes like a mercy over Steve's leaking cock and the contact nearly shuts down his mind, touching like a livewire to the base of his spine. He rocks his hips hard forward, riding himself over the planes and peaks of Dannys hips and abdomen, rubbing himself there where he's wettest.

"You're so slick, huh?" Danny is asking. _Evident._ Steve tries to form a sarcastic answer but all that makes it past his teeth is a desperate sounding gasp.

"You smell amazing," Danny is still _talking_ somehow, and the very concept of response seems too far away to contemplate. "You _look_ amazing."

_Hormones._ Steve's only answer is with his teeth, hunkering down like the animal he's halfway to becoming and sinking them down in Danny's shoulder as he rocks forward into a stroke. He bites harder when Danny lets go of his cock, one hand bracing at Steve's shoulders to hold him down, half arched along Danny's body and every nerve fiber seeming to vibrate. Thrumming like the wires in a piano before they're struck again.

Danny curls two fingers up just behind Steve's cock, curling them between the lips of his receptive cunt; the proof that he was really physically Omega just there in the seamless blending of sex organs.

Steve's whole body can't decide whether to tense up or relax completely. _Yes. More._

"I know," Danny assures him, stroking in long, cunning motions. Stirring and teasing until steve can't form any other thought than ' _more_ '. "I know, I got you."

He presses two fingers inside and Steve closes his eyes - it's easy, slick, but not enough. Steve sits up, changing the angle to drive Danny's fingers deeper, enjoying how they curl inside of him.

he hears the sound he makes when Danny withdraws them; not quite a whine of protest but embarrassingly short of the threat he'd intended.

"You ever done this before?" Danny's moving but not touching him, and Steve opens his eyes to correct this inadequacy only to find that Danny's more ready than he thought, stretching a condom over his own hard, thick cock.

Steve nods broadly, no words to explain, and reaches to help stroke the slick latex down into place. Danny's eyes close in pleasure. Steve shifts up on his knees.

"Ever been knotted, babe?"

That's a question that requires a more detailed answer than Steve can give at the moment. His mouth feels dry, his thoughts distant, and there is a sharp, _aching_ void at the center of his body that he wants filled.

Danny reads his hesitation and then finally sits up. "This is gonna be a little different for you. I think you'll like it better if - it'll feel better if..."

_Danny's asking me to submit._

Every instinct screams for Steve to throw himself down on his belly and stick his ass in the air, which is why he resists doing it.

"Do you not want to?" Danny sounds like he's on the very edge of his restraint,a nd yet Steve could still say no right here, on this ragged edge. He won't.

"We can do it your way too, babe," Danny says. "We're gonna have a lot of chances to try, believe me."

"I want to," Steve allows, and then he lets Danny up. He settles down on the bed, stretching lithely. He feels good - his body feels warm and sensitive and alive, and when Danny's hands make a firm pass down his back - just rough enough - Steve arches up into it, getting his knees beneath him.

"I've never been bitten by an Omega before," Danny muses, settling down behind Steve. The proximity is _so_ close, but not close enough. Steve's pretty sure nothing will _ever_ sate this, but the biological compulsion to try is strong enough that he'll find out.

"You better hurry up," Steve gasps, reaching for a pillow so he has something to claw at. "Or I'll bite you _again_ "

Danny leans down over Steve's back, murmuring pleasurably against his ear as he lines himself up. "You _are_ an animal."

The tone is fond and Steve can hardly argue against it with the perfect impression of his teeth purpling on Danny's collarbone. Instead, he shoves his hands against the headboard and pushes back hard onto Danny, gasping. 

He has to pause a moment - during which he dimly realizes that Danny's hands are at his hips steadying him, that he's hissing out a low stream of breathless curses against the back of Steve's neck.

The headboard rattles when Steve takes his weight off of it.

"Good?" Danny asks, shifting. His cock moves deep inside Steve, _finally_ , heavy and full and satisfying.

_Best I've been all night._

"Yeah," Steve groans, pushing back for more. "Yeah, okay."

Danny pulls their bodies together and begins to move, his hands braced on either side of Steve on the bed, knuckles white in the blankets. Steve's whole body seems to open and relax for him, instead of coiling tighter, Steve seems to get looser, to welcome Danny deeper with every thrust.

Steve submits himself to it, letting the sensations pull his mind deep, letting his instincts win out over the last tattered remains of his logic. He can feel the slow, intense release building inside him, sparking up heat that gathers and pools in his middle. Just when he's sure he's never going to reach it - Danny's breathing hard on his neck, long strokes stuttering - the dam breaks and the well releases. He feels his body shudder, beginning to contract and then the sensations tip over and it lays Steve out flat and prone.

He feels release pouring out of him as his body seems to clamp down, as if trying to draw Danny's cock deeper still. He feels utterly full, and then the feeling passes satisfying and begins to pinch, stretching and expanding until Steve has to shift forward - he doesn't make it far. 

"Shh," Danny makes a grab for his hips, pressing him down deeper against the bed. "Wait."

Steve claws the blankets, grabbing for the edge of the mattress and still he can feel Danny's knot getting bigger until finally, something aligns just right. Danny grunts, and Steve's world goes white, his body shuddering through another orgasm that seems to go on, hot steel and firing nerves, until they're both completely wrung out. Until they both shift, still tied, onto their sides and try to catch their breath.

Steve drifts, arms curled around a pillow, leaning back against Danny. For the moment, utterly satiated. No sense of urgency, no unscratched itch. Warm contentedness soaks nearly through to his bones, and he knows distantly that the release of endorphins he's just had was probably enough to sedate a horse. A very pleased horse.

He feels his breathing even out, and Danny's matching it unconsciously, and slips down into a well earned sleep, floating down into it with all his stars aligned.


	27. Day 51

Steve loses track quickly of minutes and hours, of the amount of times he finds a few hours rest and then wakes and finds Danny still there. Every time seems more pleasurable as Danny learns him, helps Steve figure out what he likes and how he likes it best. With no remaining inhibitions - not that Steve had many anyway once his guard was thus lowered - he didn't hesitate to take control when he wanted something.

It's somewhere near four in the afternoon when Danny makes Steve finish a bottle of water and eat something. The water is welcome. The energy bar sinks like a stone into Steve's protesting stomach. His body won't divert the energy for digestion in a timely fashion, he thinks, but he'll be grateful for the calories before this is over.

Steve realizes two things - he hasn't had to say anything but Danny's name in nearly 24 hours, though he's said that a _lot_ , he thinks. And, when he has the momentary lucidity to consider it, he's never been so sexually satisfied.

He doesn't go so far as to compare Cath to Danny - these were beasts of a different nature - but every time he's demanded from Danny, he's managed to thoroughly scratch that previously maddening itch - and it was completely addictive. Danny's touch, his scent - now pleasurably intermingled and inseparable from Steve's own - all of it made Steve want more of him. Even his annoying voice. Especially when he gets past the edge of control and breaks over into gasps and sighs.

_Steve_ does that to him, and he knows that it's not just the potent natural chemical cocktail running haywire through his body that makes Steve like having that power over Danny.

It means, as he pushes Danny down onto the couch again, Steve doesn't have to worry about it yet.


	28. Day 54

By the end, Danny is exhausted, sore, stiff. Steve, by contrast, feels amazing - as if he'd had the best night's sleep of his life, a full breakfast and perhaps four double espressos. 

For a time, he takes care of Danny - teasing erections out of his exhausted body with his mouth and hands before he rode over them mercilessly - until he knew that Danny's knot swelling up was a raw, sore feeling that Steve needed anyway.

Until Danny groans his way through every release and the pauses between urges are longer and longer still.

Then, they cease. Steve's got a vague memory of several showers, but he's filthy and stretched on a bed covered in a wreckage of blankets, damp in some places and scratchy with the druid fruits of their exertions in others. He's wearing his oldest pair of sweatpants,a nd Danny is sleeping if he isn't outright unconscious.

_Winner by TKO._

Steve gets up and into the shower - he expects to feel sore, to feel wrung out and left to dry like an old sponge, but he doesn't. He scrubs himself down and emerges refreshed, feeling almost radiant. Pleased with himself.

He takes his time with several glasses of water, letting Danny sleep.

The picture of him no longer confined to the couch, but somehow sprawled to take up the majority of Steve's king sized bed is one Steve enjoys. It seems _right_ in that moment, before. Steve wakes the protesting Alpha and repays the favor of making him drink a glass of cold water.


	29. Day 55

Steve finds the message from his pharmacy that his new prescription is ready when he comes downstairs to set up the coffee pot. He clears the message and turns on the pot.

Danny hasn't moved since yesterday, not perceptibly, upstairs on the bed. Steve's done him the courtesy of leaving a glass of water on the bedside table, and checking his pulse. Slow and steady. Sleeping it off. Steve is ravenous, and he bets Danny's appetite will match when he regains consciousness.

He fishes a cardboard container of eggs out of the fridge, and starts with a cup of coffee as he cracks the eggs to make a couple of omelettes. _Where does this leave us now?_ Certainly it was different already than Steve had been lead to believe. He doesn't feel any more or less compelled to listen to Danny, and he hardly seemed like much of a threat to Steve sprawled out in his bed naked.

_Maybe the movies and health class warnings are all a crock of shit._ More plausibly, it was impossible to generalize the relationship between Alphas and Omegas. Or, Danny is just different. Whatever it was, Steve thinks in this case, it's functional.

Guiltily, he thinks it's more functional on some levels than what he has with Cath. he washes the thought aside with a long sip of coffee, beats it out of his system by applying a fork to eggs. It's too early to be making any decisions or worrying about the future. _I'll call Cath. We'll work it out._

Danny's phone - abandoned and forgotten - rings somewhere in the kitchen, blaring out Styx's _Blue Collar Man_ into the quiet. Steve admires the fortitude of the battery until he finds it plugged in next to the blender. Smart. Steve picks it up and sees Chin Ho's contact information.

He answers, "McGarrett."

A moment of surprised silence. "Steve?"

"Yeah, Chin Ho, what's up?"

"Well," Chin Ho's voice slides over from surprised to businesslike and Steve can almost hear him make the decision not to ask. "We caught a case, boss, and if you're planning on coming back any time soon, we could sure use the help."

Steve checks his watch. Not quite ten in the morning. He's slept late, but he thinks that's all he needs to recover from the last few days. He feels ready for anything.

"We're all set," Steve says. "Danny and I got back in late last night, but I think we can handle a case."

Chin Ho relays the information on where the scene they're investigating is, and makes no comment on Danny and Steve 'arriving together'. 

_I should have asked Danny about his cover story._

Hopefully it'll quickly get lost under the case. Steve picks up h is own cell phone and a cup of coffee and goes upstairs to face the challenge of waking Danny and getting him upright to work. 

Briefly, he considers taking pity on Danny and leaving him behind, but ultimately he knows Danno will want to be there. That they both will have to keep going in life as if nothing at all has changed.

The sooner they can get started, the better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -Sorry for missing yesterday! I had a very long work day and didn't have time to transcribe. Here's a double update for your patience!


	30. Day 56

"So," Cath's voice over the phone in a relaxed tone that in no way matches how Steve feels about the conversation. "How'd it go?"

Steve hesitates.

"Oh come on," Cath teases. "You didn't _die_ and you're not a bad looking guy. What's the worst that could have happened? You enjoyed yourself? Tell me you didn't torture yourself and spend it alone."

"No," Steve admits. "I tried, but it didn't work out."

Cath sighs but she doesn't scold him. What's past is past. "I don't ever expect you to torture yourself for me, Steve. Don't worry about it."

"Cath?"

"Mmm-hmm?" Her tone is warm, fondly friendly. Steve feels his affection restored for her. 

"Thanks."

Steve can almost hear her satisfied smile. "So who was it? Maybe we can work out an arrangement for your next heat."

_Next-?_ Steve is guessing, with a sinking feeling, that he'll be expected to have them more regularly now that he's no longer living in a war zone or doing active combat oriented duty. The realization is not quite as world shattering as Steve would have expected.

Catherine is still waiting for her answer, quiet and patiently expectant.

"Danny," Steve admits. 

She pauses, considering. "Well, that's convenient."

"It just worked out that way," Steve interrupts her, defensive.

She laughs at him. "Steve, babe, it's okay. I meant, we could work this out. Danny's a good choice. He can be there to support you when I can't, and we all know each other. We all get along."

_She really means it._

"But it's all up to you," she finishes. "I'm just the girlfriend."

"Not _just_ , Cath," Steve says, smiling.

"Oh _really?_ " she fishes for more, teasing him.

"You're also my absolute best naval intelligence informant," Steve wheedles, guessing there really was no better way to get case-related information than by bringing it up, even in so blunt a manner.

She laughs at him. "You're already back to work? That's Steve McGarrett."

"I need some satellite information," Steve requests, politely.

"You are going to _owe_ me," Cath promises. Steve bets. He probably already owes her. A lot of other women - a lot of Betas in general - would not be so understanding.

Now he'll just have to work it out with Danny. It means a long - probably _very_ long conversation - with him. Steve makes a mental note to grab a six pack.


	31. Day 58

Steve lets it go until they get home for the night. He's not going to cause a scene - that's Danny's specialty. He does hold on to part of it - the anger won't dissipate until he has vented it.

It makes for along, tense, quiet car ride home. Steve can almost feel the pressure his pointed silence puts on Danny. Danny isn't the sort to deal with his problems by carefully considering his words first. Usually, neither is Steve.

Steve's usual method of problem solving - kicking down doors and making threats until someone gives him what he wants - isn't going to cut it here. First off, Danny wouldn't buy any threats Steve made against him.

Second, there's no sense in kicking down his own door and Steve is pretty sure he'll - _they'll_ have to talk about it, anyway. Instead, Steve lets Danny stew in it until he's lined up exactly what's bothering him in his mind. It takes up the car ride home, and preoccupies both of them until Steve turns Danny's car into his driveway and Danny makes a surprised noise.

He's looking out the passenger side window, neck turned to a sharp angle. 

"Is that Cath's car?" he asks.

Steve looks. Crouched along the curb is her gold sedan, clean and in good shape from long spells in storage. He recognizes the color and model, remembers the plate numbers. 

"Yeah," Steve says.

"You didn't think you should mention this to me?"

"I wasn't expecting her either," Steve says, and that seems to mollify Danny.

Without further discussion, they both approach the house cautiously, on alert for anything out of the ordinary. At the door, with their backs pressed to the siding as Steve works his key in the lock from one side, Danny takes advantage of the momentary hesitation in the action.

"Does she, uh, know about us?" Danny asks.

"Us?" Steve asks, purposefully obtuse.

" _Yes,_ Steven," Danny repeats. "Us. Does Catherine know the events that have transpired in the last few days."

Steve gets the lock open and pushes the door inward a few inches, keeping his body out of the frame. No immediate gunfire commences.

"Yes," Steve tells Danny. "She knows about the _events_ that have _transpired_."

He parrots Danny's big words so that he'll know how foolish he sounds. Then he kicks the door the rest of the way open and bursts into his own house with Danny a half step behind him as backup.

Cath looks up from the couch with a big bowl of popcorn in her lap and smiles.

"Surprise?" she says.


	32. Day 58 - Later

"Well, my XO took pity on me after denying my leave last week and said I could have a couple of days this week," Cath explains.

Danny has made himself scarce after a brief hello, rendering an awkward situation into a worse one. Steve can see him sitting at the breakfast bar, pretending to read a paperback copy of _The Black Echo_ , one of Steve's books. 

"So I thought I'd come home and surprise you," Cath finishes. She makes a pinching motion with her fingers. "Just a little surprise."

She smiles and Steve forgives her for his own moment of paranoia earlier. It's not Cath's fault she has bad timing. "I'm a little surprised."

"Something seems, um, a bit tense," she ventures with a glance at Danny. "I was going to collect on that dinner you owe me, but if it's a bad time..."

"Well," Steve says. _I'd better deal with this now, rather than later._

"It's not me, is it?" Cath asks.

"No," Steve assures her. "We had a misunderstanding at work."

" _You two_?" she asks in mock surprise. "No, you didn't agree on something? Get out."

Her tone is teasing, and normally Steve would allow for some differences in their methods of operation, but this wasn't so minor. He's not sure how to explain it to Cath.

She senses his hesitancy and doesn't press for details. Instead, she offers him the bowl of popcorn. He takes a handful.

"Go talk to him," Cath says, encouragingly. 

Steve gets up and heads into the kitchen. He doesn't think Danny's turned the page even once, but he holds the book up like a shield and Steve wonders whose protection it's supposed to be for.

"What do you think?" Steve asks, pulling a glass from the cupboard and the orange juice out of the fridge. He washes down his evening pills, wrinkling up his nose as the bitter taste combines with the orange juice.

Danny looks up from the novel, dog earing a page and setting it back down on the counter. He looks like he's not sure what the question is about.

Steve points at the book.

"I think Harry Bosch is kind of an abrasive idiot," Danny says. "I think he takes a lot of _unnecessary_ risks."

_That was fast._ They aren't talking about the book anymore. 

"But overall it makes for a good _story_ ," Danny continues, pointedly.

"That what happened today?" Steve says, as ready to leap into the discussion as Danny seems to be. "You thought the risk I took wasn't necessary?"

Danny looks up at him. Steve can read the answer in the determined set of his features. "I think a lot of the risks you take are entirely unnecessary, yes."

"Well," Steve says, without arguing about whether or not they were, "It's a good thing you don't get to decide what is and isn't necessary _for_ me."

Danny goes suddenly quiet, and Steve knows he's injured Danny - he didn't mean to strike back this hard, but even though his tone is level and even, he still feels angry.

"I never said that you shouldn't do... _most_ of the things, even some of the really crazy things - that you do." Danny says, quietly. "But you take a lot of chances, and I can't ignore them all the time."

"So, what?" Steve asks, driving toward the heart of the matter. "You think you have to _protect_ me? Like you did today?"

Danny doesn't answer. He doesn't lower his gaze.

"You don't need to defend me, Danny," Steve tells him.

A long silence follows. Catherine sidles into the kitchen to reach into the refrigerator, doing her best not to be intrusive. 

"Are you, uh, going to start taking care of yourself?" Danny asks, quietly.

"Danny," Steve repeats. "Nothing has changed. I don't want you to start getting overbearing and protective, just because-"

"Overbearing?" Danny protests, voice lifting. "I'm not _overbearing_. Cath, tell him I'm not overbearing."

Catherine fishes the beer she'd come into the kitchen for out of the fridge and exits the kitchen again without comment. Steve hears her open the bottle in the hall and would bet money that she's already drinking it on the way back to the safety of the living room. He wants to go with her, just settle down on the couch and pretend all these adjustment problems don't exist. It shouldn't be his job to sort these things out.

"I mean," Steve says, looking Danny in the eyes. He places his palms on the counter, hunkering down across from Danny to keep the conversation more intimate."I've seen how you are when Grace is in trouble, or when you even _think_ she's in trouble. When someone who even so much as _resembles_ Grace is in trouble."

Steve pauses to make sure Danny is listening. "And I need to know you're not going to try and protect me like that."

Danny looks upset. His words take some time to form for him, a sign that he is really considering them. His tone is lower when he continues, past outrage and into seriousness.

"Steve, Grace is a little girl," he says, then pauses. His teeth appear over his bottom lip, a delay tactic. He repeats, "a little girl in a very big, _very_ scary world."

Steve can't really argue. He's personally witnessed a lot of the terrifying things the world has to offer. He may not always agree with Danny about treating every new situation and every day with so much caution that it overshadowed life, but he couldn't deny that there _were_ dangers.

"She's not even a teenager," Danny continues. "You're practically the Frankenstein monster. What about these two situations seems the same to you?"

Steve squares himself and looks down into Danny's angry blue gaze and tells him. "She's an Omega."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> - _The Black Echo_ is the first Harry Bosch novel, by Michael Connelly. I think Steve would like Bosch, honestly, they have the same tendency to go off the deep end and self destruct when things aren't going their way.


	33. Day 58 - End of Day

Danny's silence answers for so long as he considers Steve's point that Steve finishes his glass of orange juice. He has nothing else to add. He washes his glass in the sink and waits.

"Steve," Danny says at last. "I didn't try to protect you because you're an Omega."

Steve turns around, knowing it's his turn to listen. He dries his hands on a kitchen towel. 

"I did what I thought a good partner would do in that situation and made it clear that attempting to harm or injure my _partner_ was a bad idea for this bad _person_ to have."

Steve doesn't argue, though he wants to.

"I like to think that maybe, in that same situation, you would have done as much for me," Danny says. "It wasn't that I didn't - or don't - think you can take care of yourself.

Steve holds his tongue. _It sure felt like it was._

"I just didn't think that people should have the impression that you're an easy target because no one will defend you but you," Danny continues.

This surprises Steve. _I can defend myself._ But that isn't what Danny means. 

"You're not on your own out there," Danny says. "And I want you and everyone else to know it."

Steve sits down.

"You can't say nothing's changed," Danny continues, "and then treat everything I do like it's some product of me knowing you're an Omega. You called _me_ , Steve. The rest - even the immediate results of that..."

Danny stumbles on his own words. He glances toward the living room, where Steve can see the changing light from the TV screen. He feels guilty for leaving Cath alone when she's come all this way to spend time.

But now, Steve knows he has to work this out. He can't keep letting things sit - he always seems to get something wrong when he waits too long.

"None of that has been because you're an Omega and I'm an Alpha. And I only wanna have to say that once. If you can't believe me, I don't know what else to say, Steve."

Steve pauses, rubbing his hands over his face for the tactile sensation of calm it provides. It's his instinct to blow this off, to avoid it until he can really come to terms with it. He doesn't always have that luxury. _And I haven't really given it to Danny._

"I think you're right," Steve says at last. "I'm used to being on my own side - and being the _only one_ there."

Danny pulls his lower lip through his teeth, an anxious gesture.

Steve says, because it's important. "I'm sorry."

He lets that statement stand on it's own for a moment, so that his next words don't detract from the apology. "Everything else I can say is an excuse."

"I wish you would trust me," Danny says.

"I do. More than you think," Steve admits. _And that's why I'm so braced up against you,_ he realizes. The last person he'd trusted without reserve had been his father. "I'm just not used to that working out."

"Well," Danny says, and his watch clicks against the counter top as he lowers his hands to it. "The way I see it, there's two options. One, you can get your head all the way out of your ass and realize that Navy SEAL secret-op Rambo days are over and you're part of a team these days."

Steve scratches his head but doesn't stop the tirade of words coming his direction. It feels better to be talking to Danny than trying to ignore his problems, even if the whole concept makes him anxious.

"And what's the other option you see?" Steve asks, to show that he is involved and listening.

"We both pretend we don't know anything about each other again," Danny says. "Go all the way back to the start where you didn't trust me, and I didn't trust you."

_It won't work_. They'd try, and they might even make it back to a level of professional respect, something functional. But for all the trouble now, they work better when they get along. When they're at least _trying_ to understand each other.

It's Steve - and he knows it - that's been discounting understanding in favor of the simplest, worst-case scenario explanations.

He gets up, going to the fridge to get them both beers. The solution is honestly probably a little bit of both - they start over just a little, and Steve figures out how to stop living like an Island himself. He pops both beers open, tossing the caps in satisfying arcs into the kitchen trash.

Passing Danny a beer he asks, "How do we do the first one?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -Good news, Bad News: I will be away from home and unable to update again before Saturday. (bad news, ish) However, this will afford me extra opportunities to write and I should be able to have an uninterrupted week of updates afterward. Thanks for reading!


	34. Day 59

At 4 P.M. Grace appears and the whole household - Steve realizes that's what it is, or will be if all goes well - seems to breathe a sigh of relief.

"Hey, Monkey," Danny greets, and she hugs her father. For the next two days at least, everyone settles into a truce.

"Uncle Steve," she tells him, displaying a DVD for him. "Can we watch a movie together?"

"Sure we can," he says, unsure what he's agreeing to. The cover reads _Stardust_ , and looks like a romance, but it can't be as long as _Titanic_ , and even bad movies were okay with good company.

"Catherine, you too right?" Grace turns on the charm.

"Sure, I love that one," she agrees. Steve knows he's in for a long two hours, then.

Strange how quickly and easily they could put everything else aside - with the mutual discussions at a decent point to pause - and ease onto the couch together. Set aside everything they've been talking about and just try doing it.

Steve leans against Cath and makes no protest when Danny settles intimately close on his other side with Grace in his lap. It's a lot of contact, a lot of pressure, but Steve thinks of it as support rather than the confinement it would have once seemed, and it's easier to bear.

Like all the negotiations of earlier in the day, Steve can deal with it because he doesn't have to - if he can just keep reminding himself - do it alone.


	35. Day 60

Gracie drags Steve down to the beach, early in the morning while they're the only ones awake. Cath is asleep upstairs, having practically kicked Steve out of bed with all her tossing and turning, and Danny has returned to the couch - with the understanding that it wasn't permanent.

Just until things felt a little more natural.

When his bare feet hit the cool sand, Steve admits to himself that he hadn't needed to be dragged.

"Uncle Steve," she says, wiggling her toes in the wet sand just past the edges of the tide. "Can I tell you a secret?"

"Mmm," he says, as if considering. "I think I can keep it."

"Do you think Danno really likes Hawaii?" she asks. It's not a secret, but Steve recognizes a lead in when he hears one.

"I think," Steve says, considering it. He doesn't want to give a dismissive answer, something's on her mind and she's too smart for her worries to be silly. "Danno misses the place he thinks of as home a lot. I think he doesn't like change much."

She's looking at Steve intently, worry crossing her features just a little.

"But I _also_ know that he loves you a lot, and that a big part of what he considers to be home-" Steve's brain kicks in somewhere in the middle of what he's saying and he _gets_ it. "A big part of that is the people he loves."

Steve looks out at the rolling ocean, beautiful and blue and perpetually moving. "So I don't think he really hates Hawaii. He just thinks of it as a concept."

"A concept?" she asks, curiously.

"Like a symbol of being separated from you and the memories he really misses."

She nods, thinkinga bout it. It takes a long time, but Steve is good at being quiet and patient, and Grace makes it easy for him. 

"I think Mom is going to move away," she says.

Steves nerves wake up and the hair on the back of his neck prickles.

"She and Stan are going to have a baby."


	36. Day 62

Steve keeps Grace's secret, but he thinks about it, about the implications. He doesn't know Stan that well, but he knows what society thinks about Alphas who raise the children of other Alphas. it's a prejudice that was outdated a hundred years ago, and yet it seemed to persist. 

Alphas didn't raise their children in a household with the children of other Alphas. Especially those in prominent positions or with important public images to uphold.

Biologically, the imperative was to be sure your own offspring received all the resources, that they had the best chance for survival and success. But they weren't lions, they were _people_ , and the stone age was long since over.

Still, Steve expects the news will mean at least one change. Either Stan and Rachel will fight to keep grace and will take her with them when they move again, or Stan will insist that Danny takes full responsibility for Grace and Rachel will...

Steve has no idea how to predict what Rachel will do - she's always seemed so intent on keeping tight control over Grace's custody, this whole thing seems like it's come in from left field.

It makes Steve's issues and upsets seem very small. He knows he doesn't get a call in this, not really, but some very small part of Steve is ready to take this on by the horns. The rest of him knows that it's Danny's decision, and Steve will stand behind him on it.

He can't decide quite what he _wants_ it to be, but for the moment, there are other things to worry about.

Not Danny - or rather, Steve hasn't felt that same anxiety about Danny since they'd really started speaking about it. Steve is, however, concerned on Danny's behalf, knowing a shoe - _maybe a whole closetful_ \- is about to drop.

Too, he's worried about Grace. She was a sweet, sensitive kid. She's been through enough, and knows more is coming.

He knows when Danny gets the call because he's loading towels into the dryer and he hears the slow building of volume in Danny's voice that indicates he's on the phone with Rachel and neither of them is enjoying the conversation.

Steve turns on the dryer and the sound of it cycling briefly drowns out Dany's tense tone. He heads into the kitchen, ready to offer his support. Steve catches his eye, and Danny acknowledges him with a smile that is nearly a pained grimace, a gesture at the phone and a silent mouthing of 'Rachel'.

"Rachel," Danny says, as Steve settles in at the breakfast bar, paying attention. "What this is about is stability. The stability that _you_ said _you_ would provide for Grace as the primary caretaker. The care that _you_ got up onto a witness stand and testified, in front of a jury of our peers, that you didn't think I was capable of giving."

Steve can't hear the answer, just that Rachel _is_ answering. He's not sure there's really a right answer to have.

Danny listens with the same patience Steve is getting used to, but his body describes a compact, tense line, even as he leans against the frame of the doorway, as if he's bracing it up - or it's holding him steady. He looks vulnerable.

Steve waits, quiet. Danny knows he's there, listening in, quietly supporting him.

"My point is-" Danny starts, tone lifted, no yelling but raised enough to command that he be listened to. He stoops himself and tries again in a more civil tone. "My _point_ is, what's changed now besides Stan's opinion on how many kids he should have, huh? Rachel, I'm still a cop. I have not and will at no time indicate that I'd like to stop _being_ a cop. That's suddenly not an objection for you?"

This time her answer is short. Curt. It sounds like it involves the word 'lawyer' - and Steve can see how quickly Danny's displeasure ramps up. _It's better to hate the lawyer than resent Rachel._ At least, for Grace's sake.

"I will do that," Danny says, in a tight, angry voice, words pointedly economical. Steve can hear Rachel's voice continuing, Danny repeating his affirmation.

When he hangs up, his anger fills the kitchen. Steve thinks for a moment he's going to throw his phone from the acidic way he's looking at it. 

"You okay?" Steve asks.

"No," Danny says, sharp.

Steve gets up, reaching out to press the palm of his hand to the small of Danny's back. He can feel the tension in Danny's muscles. Danny reaches out and carefully sets the phone on the counter.

"No," he repeats. "I am not okay. The mother of my daughter - who fought me tooth and nail over custody and visitation, okay? Who jerked me around in court and dragged my daughter and thus me _halfway across the planet_ -"

Danny stops when he hears his own voice echoing, taking a moment to calm himself. "Now, suddenly, that's not enough of a disruption to Grace's life but she wants to have another kid with another Alpha and for me to take over primary custody and I don't..."

Danny shows his teeth in an angry snarl. "I do _not_ understand how she can insist she has Grace's best interests at heart."

"You're a good father," Steve says. He isn't sure what else to say. None of this is territory Steve is familiar with, he hasn't even seen a _map_ , and none of it has an easy answer. "She knows you'll take care of Grace."

Danny doesn't affirm or deny it. He takes a deep breath. "I was just starting to get used to this place. Just starting to feel like my life didn't have some kind of major earthquake every week."

He lets the breath out in a rush. This week's earthquake is a big one.

-


	37. Day 70

Danny takes time off for the battle and Steve covers for him, assuring himself that he would - and has- do the same for any member of 5-0. Things get tight without Danny but Steve doesn't pressure him for a return. He's not sure how this will all shake out, not sure ow many if-whens he wants to consider without knowing the whole situation.

At home, Danny is in and out, attending meetings with his legal council and negotiations between Rachel, Stan, and himself. When he comes home, and Steve thinks of it that way even if he's not sure Danny does, he settles on the couch with papers scattered on the coffee table and his phone pressed to his ear.

Steve brings him coffee occasionally, unsure if he has anything else he can do to help. Their own status remains up in the air, on hold while this is resolved.

Finally, Danny seems talked out. He lays on the couch with his distant gaze fixed on the ceiling, defeated.

"Well?" Steve asks, settling on the arm of the couch. This much silence isn't good for Danny - he has to let it out, or he'll turn it on himself.

Like Steve does.

"Well," Danny starts, rubbing his eyes in a weary motion. "I have two choices."

Steve doesn't think he'll like either of them. He waits, letting Danny organize all of the talks and legal options in his mind until he can simplify. "Either she and Stan move again, have another child and he officially adopts Grace - effectively cutting me out of her life, or I take on full custody."

It sounds so final, harshly complete. It is a cold, uncompromising ultimatum. _How does Rachel justify it to herself?_

Steve doesn't ask the question. Instead, he asks, "what do you want to do?"

Danny sighs. "I want to reach back and time and throttle myself for thinking this could ever - _ever_ \- work out."

Steve reaches down to comfort Danny. He's got no idea what to say, and it may be there's nothing he can say that would help. But he can pass his fingers through Danny's hair - breaking through the layers of gel to work the strands soothingly between his fingers. They're quiet together.

"We should try it," Steve says.

Danny laughs - pained - a nervous, sarcastic tick. "Steve, this isn't an 'on the side' kind of project. having Grace would change everything - I mean _everything_. No more safety net. No more Rachel to pick her up when we have a 5-0 emergency, and nobody to blame but yours truly when she can't make it to Sunday cheer-leading practice on account of a fresh body in the hinterlands."

"People make it work." Steve says.

" _Some_ people." Danny says. "But not ones with this job. What I keep coming around to is I can't make both work. Maybe that's what Rachel wants, for Grace to see what I have to choose between." 

Steve knows there's no choice, not really. Danny will choose Grace. The real question is what Steve will do to help him.


	38. Day 71

Steve doesn't get home until late. He's sore and tired but it doesn't compare to how the gun traffickers he'd caught feel. For all that, his spirits lift to see home, and he looks forward to putting his feet up. He doesn't find Danny in his usual place on the couch, though the papers are still scattered on the table, underneath an empty pizza delivery box stained dark with broad grease spots.

The lights inside are all off, and it's a strangely lonesome feeling to come home, alone, into the dark. Steve hasn't had to come into an empty house after work in over two months, now, and somewhere along the way he's gotten used to an active house, populated by at least one other living, breathing creature.

Steve turns on the light in the kitchen, but leaves the rest of the house dark, considering what that means. He's never missed having Cath around. He liked her, enjoyed her presence when they could both work it out, but he never expected it to be constant. 

Steve takes his pills, pops open a longboard and looks out his kitchen window down the steps to the beach. He can hear the water, rolling and crashing, but he can't see it, just the pale wood of the back deck in the moonlight and, he thinks, the shadow of the beach chair against the white sand below.

The surf sounds welcoming, like a heartbeat. Steve rolls up the cuffs of his cargo pants, leaving his boots and socks in the kitchen. He walks down the worn wooden steps to the beach. The sand is already cold, losing heat quickly in the dark. It sticks to the soles of his feet until Steve steps into the licking waves, the cold ocean. 

It's a strangely peaceful place, hovering somewhere between action and deliberation.

_What are we going to do?_

Steve's not used to having the liberty to look ahead outside of missions. He doesn't know that it helps, to be able to consider all outcomes for something inherently emotional. It work for logistics, for planning a raid or tactical strike.

This sort of thing you can't make right by painting a target on it. 

"Is this a pastime for you?" Danny's voice carries in the darkness, ringing out from somewhere behind Steve. "Because if I didn't - from personal experience - know better, I'd say this was some kind of introspection."

Steve turns halfway, but doesn't move otherwise, even when a wave crashes around his calves, rolling in with a susurrous roar, and hissing out again pulling sand from beneath his feet with it. Danny is sitting in the beach chair with a shielded camping lantern he must have found in the hall closet, and _The Black Echo_ folded in his lap, his index finger tucked between pages to keep his place near the end. 

"It's a good thing you know better, then," Steve says, smiling. "How are you enjoying the novel?"

"Maybe Bosch isn't quite as big an asshole as I thought he was," Danny says, smiling tiredly.

Steve finds his own smile answering, another frigid wave crashing against his legs."If you stick with him a while, he gets more likeable."

Danny chuckles, shaking his head a little, looking at Steve with a glint caught in his eyes.

"So what are we going to do now?" Steve asks. "About Rachel and Grace?"

Danny turns to look out over the ocean, the curling surf beneath the moonlight. 

"The way I see it, it doesn't matter what you or I say we want to do. All of the options are terrible, and they change everybody's life," Danny says, quiet and earnest. He doesn't sound defeated. _He's not ready to give up, he's just decided on a course of action._

"So?" Steve repeats, calm and patient.

"We do whatever Grace wants us to do," Danny says. "And then we work out the rest, whatever it takes."


	39. Day 75

"So, since Grace wants to stay in Hawaii, and by some miracle she's elected to stay with her father," Danny says, when they settle down after dinner on the couch, closer than usual. "It's going to go like this..."

"It's not a miracle," Steve interrupts. "You care about her, and she likes it here."

"I'm not sure why, with all the car-jackings and kidnapings and Tsunamis and - whatever," Danny says, effectively derailed.

"It's a beautiful place," Steve says, leaning into Danny convincingly, pushing him against the arm of the couch comfortably. The table is cleared of papers at last, and an old movie with Steve McQueen provides an excuse for them to sit that close, for Steve to slowly position Danny right where he wants him.

"A beautiful place to, apparently, be kidnapped," Danny says.

"When does she move in?" Steve asks.

Danny hesitates. "I thought maybe since I won't be paying child support out anymore and I can actually use my paycheck to _support_ my child..."

"You're going to move out?" Steve asks. He's not sure how to take it. _It's not my choice. I don't want him to._

"Well," Danny says slowly. He's been thinking about it, Steve knows. "I thought before we went off the deep end with this, uh, whatever it is that you're comfortable calling it... that maybe I should get my own place and we could try things sort of the normal way. That way, you know, it won't shake grace up as much."

_He means if it doesn't work out._

Danny's voice is serious, quiet but earnest. When Steve looks up at him, he sees Danny is pointedly paying attention to the screen, watching Charrière endure starvation without breaking. 

"In case, uh, this doesn't work out for you," Danny continues. Steve holds his argument, waiting for the rest. "I mean, I don't want anyone to figure out you're an Omega - you seem to not want that to be a thing that people know - and start making assumptions. I think you're happier without that kind of pressure."

It's thoughtful. Steve is tempted - more for the sake of image - to accept the offer. To cut himself free of anything but the support role he knows he can handle and just go back to his normal life. Taking on Danny and Grace full time is a lot - a lot of commitment, a lot of potential.

"Let me think about it," Steve says, instead. He's not the sort to give up when things get difficult.

"Think about what?" Danny's attention shifts away from the action on the TV screen.

"About how empty the house will be," Steve says, leaning heavily on the suggestive tones as he works to pull Danny's button down shirt out of the waist of his pants. The next part is difficult to admit, even to Danny. He's the least likely to take it the wrong way. "I like when Grace is around. When she's happy."

"She likes it here," Danny agrees. "You're right on the beach."

"She likes not feeling so walled up, either," Steve says. Danny runs a surprised glance over him.

"She tell you that?"

Steve nods.

"You guys talk more than I thought," Danny says, lifting his hands to settle affectionately on Steve's shoulders. "I mean, not that I blame you. Grace could charm anybody."

"Wonder where she gets that from?" Steve says.

"Well, not her Uncle Steve," Danny mutters.

Steve turns against Danny, leaning into him to pin him in place as he swings a leg over his lap to press him into the couch. 

"Must be Rachel," he says.

"God, don't say that name," Danny groans. "If you say it three times in front of a mirror, her lawyer calls to gloat."

Steve chuckles - it seems funnier when the vitriol isn't aimed in Steve's directin. He's in a good mood, and feeling better as Danny eases down permissively. 

Steve pins him, enjoying his control. Maybe Danny's the only Alpha who doesn't mind getting pushed around by an Omega. Maybe he just realizes that it's usually to their mutual benefit. 

"Okay?" Steve asks, as he shifts against Danny's hips.

"Better than the movie," Danny says, but his hands are on Steves hips, reaching for his belt. He's half-smiling his nervous, eager smile, on edge but interested.

_I haven't exactly put him at ease._ Good. It'd keep Danny on his toes, or from throwing hsi weight around before Steve's ready. He wonders exactly how far he can push before Danny asserts himself. 

"This is a good movie," Steve protests - he's not looking at it either. He shifts back until he's crouching over Danny's lap and pulling on the button of his jeans. 

"Oh," Danny says, distantly, his tone drifting with distraction. He's watching Steve with absolutely every ounce of his attention, and a hungry expression. "It's uh - yeah, I'm sure it's a good movie."

Steve helps him hike his pants down off his hips, and makes sure he doesn't pay any more attention to the movie until after the credits have rolled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -They're watching _Papillion_ (or arguably not watching), if you were curious.


	40. Day 77

"So, I'll be home for the weekend," Cath says, by way of greeting, railroading over Steve's hello with a triumphant tone that suggests this had better be good news - or else. "Tell me how you and Danny are doing?"

It is good news.

"We're, uh," Steve says, realizing that considering how things are going is making him smile. He's glad Cath can't see it through the phone to tease him. "We're working it out."

"Now there's a surprise," Cath says, in good humor. "You and Danny figuring out how to make something work when push comes to shove. Shocking. How's Grace doing? It's a lot for a kid to deal with.

Steve instinctively looks out the kitchen window down at the beach.

"It's going to be an adjustment. We're looking for somebody Danny can trust to help us cover during the daytime," Steve says. "Preferably someone with an open enough schedule to come on a moment's notice..."

"Tall order," Cath allows. She's seen how careful Danny is with Grace. Steve doesn't intend to be any less diligent, now that he's partially responsible.

On the beach, Grace and Danny are both making a mess out of fishing, a pink and tela plastic tackle case propped open on the beach chair as they try to sort out the line and the lures.

"Well, we're moving the last of her stuff in this weekend," Steve says. "You'll be in time to help us paint her new room."

Cath laughs. "I have a very high contractor's fee."

Steve says, "Well, I was going to spring for pizza."

"Pizza is a start," she says, "but not the end."

"That's the traditional payback," Steve protests.

"It's the _cheap_ payback."

"Well, what is it you had in mind?" Steve asks, thinking about his wallet. "I can hire movers if it's going to be cheaper than dinner."

"That's my Steve," she says, fondly. "I'm surprised Danny agreed to this. Don't you guys get to tbe a little much for each other when I'm not there?"

"Well," Steve turns away from the window. "I talked him into it, and that sounds to me like an excuse for you to be around more."

"We'll see how this weekend goes," Cath says, sensing his bait. She's proved an able caretake for Grace in tight spots, but Steve understands what she means. "And then see how often my XO will let me off the ship."

"You want me to make some calls?" Steve offers.

"No, I think this works alright the way it is," she says. "I'm glad you're ready to try the family thing for real, and I'm also glad that doesn't mean I get cut out of your life, but I'm not ready for a full time family, and I like my job. Plus, let's be real - you like having me at my job."

"You _are_ very good at it," Steve tells her, knowing his prompts by now at least.

"Mm-hmm," she agrees, brightly. "So I expect you to get the fanciest Pizza you can find. I'll see you this weekend."

-


	41. Day 79

Somewhere in the middle of all the work - they're repainting Grace's room to make it truly hers, and brighten the interior up - Steve realizes how serious this is. Years ago, the house had been this full. When Steve's mother was alive, when his sister and he could still go to school and argue about what they were going to watch on TV every day without worrying about anything but test scores and sports practice.

Then it had changed, and since that time, there's only ever been one official occupant. After they had walked out to their various points of banishment, leaving their father as the sole custodian, they had not even been allowed to return for the holidays. 

Now there's activity - people going in and out, carrying things and helping each other. it should feel like a disturbance, but even as Steve fully realizes that this has taken over his life - not _Danny_ specifically, but all of the things that come with his involvement - he wonders why it had ever seemed frightening. 

His father had shut himself away into this house, alone - and kept it like a sort of monument to the past. the house had never grown past that tragedy, and his father had died - not too far from where Steve is standing now - guarding it like a museum custodian.

No one had been around to help him, and Steve was perilously close to walking the same road. Not that he wanted to have a traditional family - but this was different enough to suit him.

"Steve," Cath calls, leaning into the office. "I just realized - where was your bedroom when you were a kid?"

Steve smiles - it's a real temptation to tell her he'd slept in the garage or the utility access crawlspace under the house. "We're standing in it.My dad turned it into a study when I went away to basic training."

"Ouch," Cath says, looking apologetic.

"I don't think he liked my choices," Steve says, rolling his shoulders in a shrug. "But it's a nice office. I spend a lot of time in here."

Even as he says it, Steve realizes it's no longer true. Every so often, he shuts himself in and goes through his father's tool chest, looking for some new thread of his crusade to pick up. Mostly, though, he has other things to worry about. 

"Well. I think it's more useful to you as an office now anyway," Cath says, sensing she's on shaky ground with the subject matter. "I was just wondering if you were going to go for the illusion of separate bedrooms."

Steve has to think about what she means.

"Have you told Grace yet?" she prompts. 

"I think she knows to some extent," Steve says. "We haven't quite made it to sharing a bedroom all the time yet. Certainly not closet space."

"Steve," she laughs, "I'm not sure anyone has ever - or will ever - share a bedroom 'all the time' with you. It's okay to work it out at each new point."

She pauses, looking at him, measuring something. Steve wishes everything in his life was this easy, but he's not sure that when the rest of 5-0 finds out, they'll be as understanding as Catherine has been. He doubts the Governor, when she finds out, will approve of _this_ much fraternization, immunity and means be damned.

_I've always enjoyed a challenge._

"So should I invite him upstairs tonight so he stops giving me dirty looks?" Cath asks, breaking into Steve's thoughts.

Steve reaches for her. "I think you threaten him."

She laughs, stepping into the office the rest of the way. "He's not threatened by _me_ , I'm the Beta."

"I think that's the threat," Steve says, easing his hands around her waist and pulling them together.

"I think _you're_ the threat," she tells him.

"Me?" Steve asks innocently. 

"He's _definitely_ the threat," Danny's voice carries in just before he enters, setting aside an entire box of Stacy's wardrobe on the desk. 

His assertive lean against Steve's back, his hands going around Steve's waist from behind, loses some of its effect when Danny's mouth doesn't reach any higher than Steve's shoulder blades. 

"Imagine that," Cath says. "We were just talking about you."

"I know you were, because I happen to have very sharp hearing and _also_ ," Danny emphasizes, with a hot puff of breath that reaches through Steve's shirt. "A sixth sense for how much time it takes Steve to get into trouble when he's left alone."

Steve turns a glance back over his shoulder. "Good thing I usually get myself out of it again."

Danny presses his teeth possessively into the place just between Steve's shoulder blade and spine, leaving a mark that he'll feel later, when everyone's sorted out where they're sleeping tonight.


	42. Day 80

"So how do you like your new room?" Danny asks, as they settle down to breakfast. Steve has banished him from the stove where he is cooking. "I mean, I know it's a little smaller than the one you had at your Mom's."

"I like the color," she says, as Steve tests the heat on his griddle with a spot of pancake batter. "And I can fit everything in the closet. Have you seen Stacy's clothes?"

"Danno left them in my office," Steve says, remembering his minor irritation at finding it still there this morning.

"Well, uh, yes - I think that is correct," Danny agrees, making a sweeping explanatory gesture that displays both his palms. "But only because I think that Uncle Steve's office would make a good setting for a fashion show."

Grace doesn't buy the excuse, but she does go to retrieve the box.

"Oh god, are we at pet names now?" Danny asks, almost rhetorically, as if just realizing his slip. "Sorry, Steve. Kids have this like, distortion field that changes everyone's names to something cute and friendly."

"It's cute when she does it," Steve agrees. "But a little weird when you do it. Just don't start calling me 'Mom'."

Danny gives Steve a scathing glance, as if marking a tally against an old score. Steve gives him a broad grin, and flips the pancakes.

"Danno suits you," Steve says.

"Don't burn breakfast," Danny grouses. 

Steve thinks the first batch of pancakes is perfect. He gives them to Grace when she returns from saving Stacy's wardrobe.

"Is Cath going to come downstairs today or just keep sleeping?" Danny asks.

Steve glances toward the living room. "She likes to sleep in when she gets a chance."

"She takes up the whole bed so no one else can," Danny mutters, and then covers his mouth and slides a glance at Grace who doesn't seem to have heard. He covers his mistake. "What do you mean, you Navy people don't do that whole five minutes of sleep thing like you do with the showers?"

Steve gives him the darker pancakes, since his talking had distracted Steve. 

"You take five minute showers?" Grace asks, looking surprised.

"Technically," Steve tells her, "it's three minutes."

Grace looks impressed.

"I spent the first day of my weekend moving furniture," Catherine's voice proceeds her into the kitchen. "And unlike you boys, I worked all week."

"We worked," Steve says, in mock defensiveness. 

She doesn't argue, but her smile says she's tallying a victory point. Catherine moves past him to get a cup of coffee, elbowing Steve out of the way playfully when he crowds her, giving him a meaningful glance. She looks good first thing in the morning, by some gift of grace that women have, and plays it off effortlessly. Steve never feels bad exchanging barbs with her before her first cup of coffee - unlike Danny who was nearly unintelligible. She can beat him, as always, while still in her pajamas.

Catherine takes her cup of black coffee and settles at the table, and Steve decides he likes this almost-complete picture. Four chairs, and only one empty. Waiting for him.

That's a start.

"So can we get you back next weekend?" Danny asks, sounding hopeful.

"Well that depends on what duty rotation I'm on," Catherine says conversationally. "But my ship is in port for a little while, so if I can, I'd love to. Grapevine says they may be asking us to put the Zumwalt through its paces."

"The Zumwalt? Really?" Steve's interest takes a leap. He settles down at the table, putting down the last two plates at the same time. "Time to see if it's really radar proof after all, I guess."

"The _what_?" Danny asks, lost.

"It's a new class of destroyer," Cath explains. "It has a profile like a stealth jet, designed to be radar resistant."

"The Navy's new baby," Steve agrees. 

Danny looks unimpressed, but judges that he's outnumbered at the table. He keeps his colorful commentary to himself, and then Steve sees Cath lean just slightly in her chair, giving Danny's hand a gentle squeeze under the table to reassure him. 

"We're not sure it'll work either," she whispers conspiratorially, and for that moment, sides are dissolved and they're really almost a family.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -The Zumwalt is really a real thing, see: [the wikipedia article](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zumwalt-class_destroyer)


	43. Day 85

"You promised," Danny reminds Steve. He _had_ , and he knows. "You _promised_ you would not do this."

Steve holds the cell phone to his ear and looks down at the body on the ground, working his teeth over his lower lip. 

"It hasn't even been a week," Danny says, quietly. "I am on the way to get my daughter from the bus stop."

"I know you are, Danny," Steve says. Things are as complicated as they'd expected. Moreso, given that this is their third body this week. _Trial by fire_ , Steve thinks.

They both pause. Steve to make sure Danny is finished letting out his frustration and Danny to let Steve finish what he'd started saying.

"I need you on this," Steve says. "But not before you take care of Grace. Can you get a babysitter?"

"We better put one on retainer," Danny sighs.

"Yeah, I won't argue with that," Steve says.

"You think we can get one on 5-0 payroll?" Danny asks.

"Now you're pushing it," Steve warns him. He doesn't think about it until after they've said goodbye and hung up. He turns around.

"Chin Ho are you any good with kids?" Steve asks, figuring it's worth a shot. They at least trust him.

"Hey, no," Chin Ho says, giving his head a shake. "For one thing, babysitting is out of my paygrade..."

"You are making a _much_ better figure-" Steve starts to protest.

Chin Ho shakes his head. "I can deal with you as a boss when family isn't involved. I can't deal with Danny as a boss when Grace is involved. No offense, but dead bodies are quieter. And less dangerous."

He has a point. They'll need a real solution.


	44. Day 90

"Can you just try for the sake of continuing to preserve the peace on this island," Steve cajoles, "just give this girl a _chance_?"

Danny slides a look at Steve, his whole body slumped into the couch with his hands to his sides on the cushions, every fiber of his posture reminiscent of a five year old on the way to Aunt Boring's sixteen hour tea service. He doesn't want to do this.

"This is the fifth person we've interviewed," Steve reminds. If Danny looked any less enthusiastic, his eyes would be rolling back in his head. Steve stops.

"Alright," he says after a reminder to himself that usually - _usually_ , when Danny seemed unreasonable, there was an issue behind it that they needed to discuss. "If your solution isn't to find a trusted babysitter, how would you like to work this out?"

Briefly, Steve feels a flash of pride. _That could have been an argument._

Danny hesitates, as if he doesn't know what to do with his concerns when asked to express them without confrontation. He thinks better in the thick of things, perhaps his most 'alpha-like' trait. But he can make the best of opportunities as well, and Steve thinks that Danny's level-headed resourcefulness is one of his best traits.

Danny gathers himself. "I hate that I feel like I'm being made to choose, _again_ , between my daughter and my job. 

"This is about trying to find a compromise, where both get to be part of your life," Steve says carefully.

"I know, it's just," Danny animates at last, beginning to gesture along with his point. "Having to foist her off on some babysitter every time we catch a case - and we catch a _lot_..."

He sweeps his hands through the air in an exasperated gesture. It doesn't make a dent in all the product applied. Steve watches Danny's shoulders expand and contract with a sigh.

"And then, I know the job. Maybe I didn't pick this _specific_ , extremely _demanding_ job and this specific, _extremely_ demanding partner," Danny says. Steve doesn't let him get under his skin. "But I did make the choice to become a detective because I am good at it, and I have chosen to pursue that choice with a rabid tenacity-"

"I wouldn't say 'rabid'," Steve breaks in, providing a counterbalance to Danny's rising tone.

Danny collects himself. "But last time I made that choice and pursued it, it cost me something."

Steve sits down next to him, suddenly understanding his reluctance.

He's worried that this new thing with Steve might go the same way if he's not careful. Steve isn't sure how to tell him that there aren't any guarantees - Danny surely already knows that.

"I'm not asking you to pick one," Steve says. "And maybe we shouldn't worry about permanence just yet."

Danny looks at him, wary. _He thinks I've made a mistake. That I'll throw him out like Rachel did._

Steve reaches for him. "Danny I don't think that wanting to be a good father will make you less effective as an officer. We'll find a way that you can do both - or, well, I'd miss having you as a partner but I'm willing to give you an excellent reference."

Danny leans against him, shoulder to shoulder.

"We can work it out," Steve says. "This part now. The rest we get to when we get to it." 

Danny nods, without looking up at Steve, a motion that transfers through both their bodies. "Thank you."

Steve is about to respond, though he's not so great at reassurances, when Danny's arm loops affectionately around his neck and pulls Steve in for a real kiss, a genuine one.

It's the first time. The realization surprises Steve.

-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -Sorry for the long delay. I'm trying to gear up for Nanowrimo, and that meant making sure some of my other longstanding projects were completely finished in time for November 1st. Since I've finished writing Lagleita, and the end of this piece is definitely in sight (I'm currently getting the sexy epilogue together for you guys), I resumed updating. There's just a few more chapters in this one, so I doubly apologize for the delay but it should be smooth sailing from here to the end. Thanks for reading along guys!


	45. Day 124

The phone goes off in Steve's back pocket and he does his best to ignore the urgent feeling it spikes up in the back of his mind. It's probably work, the news is probably bad, and he'll probably have to go in.

Not before he watches Grace rock the half-time show. She's been doing well in practice, proud of her accomplishments, and even Danny's started to warm up to the idea of taking her to practice every Sunday.

Beside him, Danny swats suddenly at his coat pocket and Steve dismisses his amusement that even four months of cohabitation hadn't convinced him to stop wearing a suit. 

Years of dealing with Rachel has taught him not to ignore his phone, however. Steve thinks the time difference between here and Chicago puts here off the list of possible communications at the moment. Danny smiles when he looks at the screen. 

_Definitely not Rachel._

"Cath says you should answer your phone," he tells Steve. "She says it's good news, and unlike the last time you called _her_ , it's not work related."

"She said all that? You didn't even answer it," Steve says, reaching for his cell phone.

"There is, as I am informed by my ex-wife and daughter both, a miracle of modern communication called _texting_ , babe."

"Have you finally figured that out?" Steve asks him, scrolling through his contacts.

"Sink or swim," Danny says.

"You can't swim either," Steve reminds him. He knows better.

"You have _seen_ me swim," Danny says, exasperated.

"I could stand to see it again," Steve tells him, with a smirk when Danny blushes.

He punches the button to call Cath still half-watching the football players below.

"Hey baby," she says, warmly. Steve has premonition of good news, of the real variety. "How's the game?"

"Well, the quarterback isn't as good as I was," Steve says casually.

"He must not be an Omega with something to prove," she teases. "I meant, how's Grace doing?"

"Gracie's doing real well. she's excited. She made us go out for extra flipping practice yesterday," Steve says. "She's gonna do great at half-time. Wish you could see it."

"I know. Sorry I can't be there just yet," Cath says.

"We were hoping you'd come up this weekend," Steve suggests. "Grace'll be at an overnight cheer camp."

"Did you ever find a babysitter Danny approved of?"

Steve slides a glance at Danny who is still watching the game, not wanting to miss when his daughter got up to cheer. "We're working on it. What's the good news?"

"I managed to get an assignment on the Zumwalt," she says, clearly proud of herself. "Should keep me a little closer to home since they're still barely letting it out of Honolulu harbor."

"Cath, that's amazing," Steve says, pleased. "That's a big step up."

"Well, apparently they like my work despite your best efforts, but I think it's a good move."

Steve grins. "We should celebrate. Danny will buy us beer."

"Oh, so it won't be cheap beer," Cath says.

"Would I buy cheap beer for someone so close to me?" Steve asks.

"Yes," Danny and Cath both answer simultaneously.

Secretly, Steve likes it - just a little - when they gang up on him. If it's an Omega instinct, he doesn't mind.


	46. Day 275

_It's going to be a year soon._ The thought creeps in unbidden, and brings a wave of disbelief that leaves Steve standing in the kitchen with his eye son the spinning ceiling fan. He does the mental math twice, arguing with himself internally over starting dates, over the timeline of important events.

"What's the matter Uncle Steve?" Grace asks, looking up from her book report.

"I was just trying to figure something out," he says, both knowing his figure is right and hoping it isn't.

Nine months. He'd thought Danny would be on his couch for a couple of weeks at most.

She smiles. "What are you going to do for your anniversary?"

Steve nearly balks at the word. It's apt, in a way, but Steve's not sure it's the one he'd use.

"I don't know if it really is an anniversary," Steve admits. He sits down at the kitchen table with her, comfortable. He makes an effort not to talk to her like a child - he'd never cared for that, at her age.

"Because you're not married?" she asks.

That's an unlikely outcome. He and Danny work well together, and with Cath's support and the occasional efforts of a babysitter, it's become functional. Steve is leery of anything that seems too easy.

"More because I'm not really sure there's an official starting date," Steve explains. It's easier than explaining that no one was cheating, and that TV relationships weren't much like reality. Grace has picked up the rest - the parts of it she needs to know, anyway - very quickly.

"And I'm not really an 'anniversary' sort of guy," Steve continues.

Grace gives him a knowing look. "Danno forgets sometimes, too."

The seriousness of her expression and tone reveals enough experience that Steve chuckles. "I don't forget, not really. I just don't think about it."

"Think about what?" Danny asks, passing in from the hall. As usual, summoned up by discussion about him.

"Anniversaries," Steve says.

"I told him you forget them too," Grace adds.

"Forget?" Danny asks in mock insult. "I don't forget, I just am sometimes very _almost_ late, which is not the same as _actually_ late. Besides, I never forget birthdays."

Grace doesn't argue. Her ninth birthday had been over the top, even by Danny's standards. Steve gets it, though. Rachel only barely fulfills her twice weekly phone calls, now that she's officially expecting again.

Maybe it is better for the break to be as clean as possible in this case.

"I was just thinking about how long it's been since you moved in," Steve says.

"Boy," Danny starts, then actually thinks about it. "I guess time has just kept going"

"Slowly, agonizingly," Steve teases, giving Grace a wink to show he doesn't mean it. "I guess having an Alpha around really changes everything."

"Only if you train them right," Danny says, exasperated.

Steve doesn't think it's anything like that, having lived it. It's not as simple as biology. In the Navy, he'd met plenty of Alphas who were exactly what he'd been taught to expect - domineering, overbearing, and who had to prove what they were loudly and lewdly whenever they were given half a chance.

But Danny was Danny. More Alpha, in Steve's opinion, than any of the others. He is confident enough that just his presence proves his territory, and smart enough to trust that Steve needed defense as a partner on the job, but not from other Alphas.

The rest - including the good sex, which Steve admits more of a fascination with than he expected - was a bonus.

Steve _has_ changed, and a part of that is cohabitation, just like he feared. But he likes the change, and he's positive that's not all pheromones and brain chemistry.

Maybe he will celebrate their anniversary.


	47. Day 364

"Are you sure it'll happen tomorrow?" Cath asks, in a careful undertone. She looks excited, bright eyed.

"Dr. Hale said this time my body should be ready for it, since I haven't let it slide," Steve explains. "But maybe it'll be late tomorrow."

He can smell Cath's excitement, all his senses seem to be turning and tuning up now. He's aware of a dizzying, precipitous feeling in his own body. _Probably not_ too _late tomorrow_.

"I'm glad you can be here this time," Steve tells her, easing his arms around her middle.

"Are you kidding?" she says. "Grace off to summer camp-"

" _Thanks_ for telling Danny about _Bloody Pom Poms_ , by the way," Steve interjects. "That made talking him into this _so_ much easier for me."

"Just you, me, Danny, and a great big strap on," she whispers. It touches, livewire hot against the tail end of Steve's spine as they turn a circle, waltzlike, in the kitchen. "You out of your mind with pleasure. I wouldn't miss it."

They're dancing then, slow and easy, bodies moving together in a way Steve is keyed to be aware of, each touch keenly resonating through him as the last and greatly reduced dose of Ceasex falters out of his system.

Steve loses track, just following his instinct to keep moving until another weight settles against his back, joining the dance in Danny's lumbering fashion.

"What's the whispering, huh?" he asks. Steve can feel him move, feels the brush of Danny's cheek against his shoulderblades. "Do I have to chaperone this dance or...?"

He doesn't finish. Steve feels a warm breath through his old T-shirt and knows Danny's caught his scent, knows he'll be able to sense Steve's oncoming heat.

"Did you two figure out when your anniversary was?" Cath asks, mischieviously.

"I think we're going to figure it out," Steve says, and then sighs out, sharp and hot, when Danny bites a claiming mark on his skin. "Very soon."

-


	48. EPILOGUE - Choose your own Day

Steve makes it in the door, barely, aware of very little but the drive to get upstairs to where he knows Cath is waiting, to drag Danny with him and do something - _anything_ \- that will ease the pressure and void that are demanding and _begging_ in him at the same time.

Something is impeding his forward momentum, some warm, low resistance and Steve keeps moving forward against it. It feels good to strain against resistance, working his muscles, seeming to satisfy and answer the heat in his body. At least until his obstacle begins to protest.

"Do you _ever_ , and I mean ever because you'd think right now would be a prime example, just do things the easy way?" Danny demands from chest-height, trying to wrestle Steve into shape - some kind of shape, anyway. Maybe, trying to make him submit with his comical wrestling armlock around Steve's middle. 

"What's the easy way?" Steve manages to ask, knowing he's baiting Danny. He smells good - _amazing_ , even. Steve wants him, but even with his Heat flushing up over him he can't make himself go easy for Danny. 

It's more fun to make him work for it, the first couple of times anyway.

"The easy way would be you actually don't make me bodily wrestle you to the floor before I give you what you want," Danny says, in sharp sarcasm. "Why do you wanna fight before you let me make you feel good-"

"I like you to have tangible victories," Steve purrs, amused. "You try a little harder if you have to work for it."

"I _try_ -" Danny begins, exasperated. He looks up at Steve, unwavering, with that same gorgeous blend of adoration and outrage that so often colors his dealings with Steve. 

"Are you saying," Danny starts again. It's hard to think with him so close. Steve doesn't know how Danny can keep finding so many words to say. "You piss me off because it makes me _try_ harder?"

Steve eases a hand up between Danny's legs and palms his forming - _formed_ \- erection through his pants. "That's not the only way I make you harder. You wouldn't even like easy."

He pauses, grinning as Danny sighs, curling his grip coaxingly. "What are you going to do about it? Bite the back of my neck?"

Danny, instead, bites Steve's stomach where he can reach. Hard enough to shut Steve up except for a sharp intake of breath that ends in laughter. It's unexpectedly pleasurable.

"What kind of Alpha has to put a submission bite on an Omega's _stomach_?" Steve laughs, and then recoils as Danny bites him again.

"The kind that's done talking," Danny growls. Steve loves when he's assertive, because there's never a sense that Danny himself is out of control. He'll never forget what Steve's desires are, never stop listening even if the majority of what Steve is saying is mindless.

Steve can feel how slick and ready he is, how close to falling completely apart. He's intimately aware of a coil of wet winding its way down the inside of his thigh. resistance no longer seems like a path Steve wants to take.

When they get upstairs, Catherine is waiting for them, patient and amused.

"I thought you boys were going to stand down there all day and talk about it," she says, making room on the bed for them. Steve likes the contrast of the black straps over her thighs, the slick black dildo a promise he'd found intimidating the first time, with a swell mimicking a knot.

"Well, you know Danny," Steve says, twisting his hips out of his tight and now sodden jeans. "He's all talk."

Danny makes a faint sound of exasperation, and pushes Steve onto the bed. "You got a lot to say yourself right now for someone who's supposed to be out of his mind with desire."

"You're not even _trying_ yet," Steve starts. It's Cath who shuts him up, pinning him down against the bed while Danny strips bare. She warms him up with a tight grip on his cock, firm strokes until he really is starting to go out of his mind, unrelenting.

When Danny joins them, Steve's ready. He surrenders, pliant and pleasured between them, every thought shut out under a wave of bright-sparking _want_ as they stretch him open, front and back. Slowly, tantalizing with fingers at first until Steve protests that it's _not_ enough, that the promise of what's coming is killing him, drowning him in desperate emptiness.

"He gets _really_ wet," Cath purrs, sounding like an approval. She's enjoying herself, being the one with a clear head, enjoying how even her voice gets a reaction from Steve. He groans and pushes his hips back against her, against the firm silicone dick pushing against his ass, and digs his fingers into Danny's shoulders in a demand. He's ready.

Though he's wet and stretched, it's not quite easy as Danny slowly slides home in front and slower, with more care, Cath eases in behind, leaving Steve clawing for a hold, holding onto both of them. It's too much, then enough, fuller than he's ever been, and suddenly, deliriously satisfying as Steve pants and groans his way through it, and they aren't even _moving_ yet. 

His whole body is a bright, singing point of pleasure, his mind a white intense place. Danny only curls his hand around Steve's cock thinking to help him adjust, and Steve hits orgasm harder and faster than he expected - as if he'd been right on that charged line for hours, rather than a couple of minutes.

"Whoa," Danny says, warm - his voice is tight, and Steve realizes dimly that his whole body is reacting, that he's nearly growling and his release is sending hungry waves through him, pulling each penetration deeper until everything seems right and full.

Satisfied.

It's intense, leaving Steve drifting, holding loosely to Danny and Cath both and utterly at their mercy.

"That was amazing," Cath says.

Danny's words take longer to come to him. "That was really fast."

Steve shifts, feeling Danny's knot starting to swell, pushing and opening him, making pressure against where Cath's still penetrating and if they're still talking until he's locked in place, immovable, hot bright pleasure as Danny's knot pushes everywhere _right_ inside him, he's not aware of it.

"You think we'll wear him out too fast?" Cath asks. Steve can't catch his breath to do anything more than groan, embarrassingly needy. She moves, just a little, just _right_ squeezing him around Danny.

"More," he begs. It's all he can think. This Heat will wring them all dry and leave its pleasurable mark, and Steve doesn't mind for once, being so vulnerable. When she obliges him, it's his command she's answering and _everybody_ feels it.

Between the two of them, Steve completely submits to instinct and knows he'll come out satisfied and ready. 

He won't be putting his next heat off for five years.

[END.]

**Author's Note:**

> -These are going to be short, but I'll try to post a 'Day' chapter every day.  
> -This is my first H50 fic so please bear with me as I learn the characters!


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